2024-02-21 13:00:48
An invisible threat is growing: bacteria that are resistant to the strongest drugs. But now a new, long-awaited active ingredient has been found.
Many sick people are prescribed antibiotics to fight bacterial infections. But many remedies lose their effectiveness in the long term because multi-resistant germs are increasingly spreading. The dramatic thing: According to estimates, around 33,000 people in Europe die every year from diseases caused by such resistant bacteria.
Developing new active ingredients, on the other hand, takes a lot of time. But now there is encouraging news from research.
Cresomycin – a potential “super antibiotic”?
Scientists at the renowned Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have developed a synthetic molecule called cresomycin that is said to work remarkably well as an antibiotic – at least in mice. As the study recently published in the journal Science states, the new antibiotic even kills various forms of bacteria that have developed multiple resistances to the previously approved antibiotics.
What is special about cresomycin?
Most common antibiotics, such as clindamycin from the lincosamide group, target the bacterial ribosome – the machinery with which bacteria produce their proteins. However, many bacteria have changed their ribosomes in such a way that the antibiotics that work there no longer work as effectively. This is where cresomycin comes in.
Cresomycin is structurally similar to conventional antibiotics. But its stiffer shape allows it to bind more effectively to the ribosomes of various types of bacteria. According to the US researchers, it can combat various bacteria, including multi-resistant hospital germs such as Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
The dangerous pathogen Staphylococcus aureus
This germ colonizes many people without them noticing. It is often found in the nose. However, if the immune system is weakened, the bacterium can cause wound infections and even blood poisoning (sepsis).
Clinical trials planned
The researchers write in their conclusion: It is not yet clear how cresomycin and similar drugs affect humans. But their results showed “a significantly improved inhibitory effect against the long list of pathogenic bacterial strains that kill more than a million people every year” compared to already approved drugs. Cresomycin should now be further investigated and improved in clinical studies.
However, there is still a long way to go before the drug will be available as a potential drug and actually save lives. The discovery of the new antibiotic molecule should nevertheless be seen as an important milestone in the fight against antibiotic-resistant germs. At the same time, the researchers themselves emphasize that other, even more effective active ingredients could probably exist – they just need to be discovered.