Researchers in Ireland believe they may have found a solution to the antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" that are increasingly stumping doctors: superdrugs.
Over the past few months, the Centers for Disease Control and other medical experts have warned that bacteria such as gonorrhea and staph are growing increasingly resistant to doctors' best antibiotics.
With no new drugs in the pipeline, the specter of untreatable bacterial illnesses was beginning to look like a certainty. But researchers at University College Dublin believe that by augmenting existing antibiotics with "adjuvant compounds,"—unrelated chemicals that can be added to the antibiotic — they can increase the antibiotic's effectiveness by six-fold.
"We are enhancing the activity of antibiotics we already have," says Marta Martins, one of the researchers working on the problem. "We've found that these commercially-available compounds can resuscitate the effectiveness of antibiotics."
Read more: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/03/28/augmented-superdrugs-could-wipe-out-antibiotic-resistant-superbugs
Over the past few months, the Centers for Disease Control and other medical experts have warned that bacteria such as gonorrhea and staph are growing increasingly resistant to doctors' best antibiotics.
With no new drugs in the pipeline, the specter of untreatable bacterial illnesses was beginning to look like a certainty. But researchers at University College Dublin believe that by augmenting existing antibiotics with "adjuvant compounds,"—unrelated chemicals that can be added to the antibiotic — they can increase the antibiotic's effectiveness by six-fold.
"We are enhancing the activity of antibiotics we already have," says Marta Martins, one of the researchers working on the problem. "We've found that these commercially-available compounds can resuscitate the effectiveness of antibiotics."
Read more: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/03/28/augmented-superdrugs-could-wipe-out-antibiotic-resistant-superbugs
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