Revolutionizing Antibiotic Treatment: New Drug Outwits Bacteria 

Revolutionizing Antibiotic Treatment: New Drug Outwits Bacteria. Credit | Depositphotos
Revolutionizing Antibiotic Treatment: New Drug Outwits Bacteria. Credit | Depositphotos

United States: According to the latest reports, scientists revealed that bacteria generally try to survive and start developing antibiotic resistance. However, each bacterial infection has a fix. 

More about the case 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), bacterial resistance is “one of the top global public health and development threats.” 

According to the WHO reports published last November, antimicrobial resistance, including antibiotic resistance, directly caused 1.27 million global deaths in 2019 and contributed to 4.95 million deaths, as bgr.com reported. 

Moreover, the World Bank has estimated that drug resistance could even cause the healthcare sector to whopping USD one trillion by 2050. 

How do we fix the problem, as per experts? 

According to a University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) study, one way is to develop drugs to which microbes (bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites) can’t build resistance. 

Revolutionizing Antibiotic Treatment: New Drug Outwits Bacteria. Credit | iStock
Revolutionizing Antibiotic Treatment: New Drug Outwits Bacteria. Credit | iStock

For example, these new dual-action antibiotic ideas from the university might make bacterial resistance nearly impossible. 

Moreover, as UIC scientists suggested, this drug makes it a hundred times more difficult for bacteria to develop resistance. 

The study was published in Nature’s Chemical Biology journal. 

More about the finding 

The scientists described how the new class of drugs can disrupt bacterial cell function in infectious diseases

The new class of drugs called macrolones is a new dual-action synthetic drug with two varied actions against bacteria. They could function by killing protein production. 

Moreover, it can also work by interfering with bacteria’s DNA structure, similar to the current fluoroquinolones act, another famous antibiotic. 

According to scientists, macrolines can hold the ribosome more tightly than macrolides. The ribosome is a cell organelle that produces proteins. 

It makes the bacteria fail to activate antibiotic-resistance genes when dealing with the new compound. 

According to Alexander Mankin, professor of pharmaceutical sciences at UIC, “The beauty of this antibiotic is that it kills through two different targets in bacteria,” as bgr.com reported. 

He added, “If the antibiotic hits both targets at the same concentration, then the bacteria lose their ability to become resistant via the acquisition of random mutations in any of the two targets.” 

Moreover, Mankin added, “The main outcome from all of this work is the understanding of how we need to go forward,” and “The understanding that we’re giving to chemists is that you need to optimize these macrolines to hit both targets.”