New drug found buried

A NEW kind of antibiotic has been unearthed – buried in dirt.

Experiments found it killed several superbugs – including notorious Staphylococcus aureus.

It could lead to desperately needed treatments for deadly antibiotic-resistant infections.

The drug comes from soil bacteria – the source of most of our antibiotics including the first and most famous, Penicillin.

Its discovery by Scots genius Alexander Fleming in 1928 was arguably the most important medical breakthrough in history.

More than 100 compounds have been found since. But no new class has been found in more than 30 years.

Now an analysis of over a thousand soil samples taken from across the US has identified a family of antibiotics named malacidins.

In tests they killed a variety of multidrugresistant, disease causing bacteria including the MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) skin infection in rats.

The team sequenced bacterial DNA extracted from the collections of earth to reveal a set of genes that produce malacidins.

They also found the new antibiotics fight bacteria differently to most other drugs by attacking a key part of the bacterial cell wall.

Importantly there were no side effects in rodents and the researchers are hopeful the same will apply for humans.

This is a mechanism to which microorganisms did not develop resistance in the laboratory.

The lack of new drugs coupled with overprescribing has led to bacteria becoming increasingly resistant to modern medicines.

Dame Sally Davies, the government’s chief medical officer, has said antibiotic resistance was “as big a risk as terrorism” and warned Britain faces returning to a 19th century world where the smallest infection or operation could kill.