Silver bullet for superbugs

Scientists have made a significant breakthrough in the fight against superbugs, bacteria that have grown immune to existing antibiotics, making infections that were previously easily treatable incurable.

Scientists with the Oregon State University in the US have now created a molecule that attacks the enzyme which makes bacteria resistant.

The molecule reverses antibiotic resistance and could allow us to use medicines that are currently useless.

The molecule is a peptide-conjugated phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomer (PPMO). The enzyme it combats is known as New Delhi metallo-betalactamase (NDM-1), first identified in a Swede who fell ill with an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection that he contracted in India.

NDM-1 is deadly, because it makes bacteria resistant to a class of penicillins called carbapenems—better known as the kODVW UHVRUWy GUXJV

According to the researchers, PPMO will likely be ready for testing in humans in about WKUHH \HDUV

A Nevada woman had died last year when a superbug she contracted in India proved resistant to all 26 antibiotics available in the US.

The UN has deemed superbugs a kIXQGDPHQWDO WKUHDWy and predicts that they will kill 300 million people by 2050.

The study was published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy