Dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria could soon be targeted with a drug initially developed to treat Alzheimer's disease. University of Queensland-led research investigated the antibacterial properties of metal transport drug, PBT2. The professor from UQ's School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences said while the drug did not make it to market for Alzheimer's and Huntington's disease, the results suggest it may still have great use.
"This particular drug progressed to phase one and two human clinical trials for Alzheimer's and Huntington's, and was shown to be well tolerated by human subjects," he said. "PBT2 is designed to disrupt the interaction between metals and human cells, which was thought would reduce heavy metal levels in the brain. "With this in mind, and knowing that disrupting metal content can induce toxicity in bacteria, we examined the effects of PBT2 against a wide…
