Bacteria Slayer

Scientists from the University of Lincoln, UK, have created two synthetic derivatives of Teixobactin – the world’s first known antibiotic that is capable of destroying drug resistant bacteria.

“Teixobactin originally evolved in soil to kill the bacteria around it, so our challenge was to produce the antibiotic synthetically,” said Ishwar Singh from the University of Lincoln. Teixobactin which kills a range of pathogens without detectable resistance was isolated from microorganisms found in soil – the natural source of nearly all antibiotics developed since the 1940s.

The discovery of Teixobactin by researchers last year was hailed as a ‘game changer’ in the fight against antimicrobial resistance. Since then, researchers all over have been trying to develop several versions of the potential drug through chemical synthesis. Lincoln researchers achieved this by using commercially available building blocks and a single purification step.