The last major new antibiotic, Daptomycin , was discovered in the 1980s by Eli Lilly & Co. After being abandoned in early testing, the drug was licensed by Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. in 1997 and approved for sale in 2003. Factors such as doctors overprescribing antibiotics, patients misusing antibiotics, and farmers overusing them has accelerated the natural evolution of common pathogens, causing them to become resistant to drugs at an unprecedented rate.
Our biggest hope in fighting antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” may have been right under our noses, or rather, right under our feet this whole time. Teixobactin , a new antibiotic found in soil, has been found to destroy all tuberculosis, MRSA, but most importantly, those strains which have built a resistance. In a new study, now published in the journal Nature, researchers explain how they tricked a microbe commonly found in soil into…
