Wednesday, January 7, 2015

New Super-Antibiotic

Whew! In the nick of time.
A super-antibiotic capable of wiping out everything from MRSA to TB has been found lurking in soil. 
In tests, the new medicine rapidly cured infections that should have been fatal. 
The drug also worked ‘exquisitely’ well against hard-to-treat bugs that damage the heart. 
Crucially, it could be a powerful weapon in the war against antibiotic resistance, in which once easy-to-treat infections become deadly after finding sneaky ways of evading powerful drugs. 
With no new type of antibiotic hitting the market for almost 30 years and bacteria becoming harder to treat by the day, experts have warned medical treatment could soon be dragged back the 19th century. 
The drug is called teixobactin. (Full story here).

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Weekend Reading -- A New Weekend Knowledge Dump

Greg Ellifritz has posted a new Weekend Knowledge Dump at his Active Response Training blog . Before I discuss some of his links, I want to ...