https://www.wsj.com/articles/genetic-seq...t#cxrecs_s

We are a ways off yet, but this looks really promising! The antibiotics we currently have are becoming less effective than they were even recently. This latest fall/winter in particular, I've personally experienced and seen with others I know that had to get 2 or even 3 scripts for antibiotics (Z-Packs, Amoxicillin most commonly) to kill a sinusitis infection or other bacterial respiratory infections. It's not talked about much, but IMHO allowing disease to run rampant again like the "good old days" will retard progress and innovation - although the possible side effects would be to allow human evolution to improve our resistance to disease plus cull the world population to allow the earth to better sustain us...

Quote:In a bag of backyard dirt, scientists have discovered a powerful new group of antibiotics they say can wipe out many infections in lab and animal tests, including some microbes that are resistant to most traditional antibiotics.

Researchers at Rockefeller University in New York reported the discovery of the new antibiotics, called malacidins, on Monday in the journal Nature Microbiology.

It is the latest in a series of promising antibiotics found through innovative genetic sequencing techniques that allow researchers to screen thousands of soil bacteria that previously could not be grown or studied in the laboratory. To identify the new compounds, the Rockefeller researchers sifted through genetic material culled from 1,500 soil samples.

“We extract DNA directly out of soil samples,” said biochemist Sean Brady at Rockefeller’s Laboratory for Genetically Encoded Small Molecules, a senior author on the new study. “We put it into a bug we can grow easily in the laboratory and see if it can make new molecules—the basis of new antibiotics.”

The new compounds appear to interfere with the ability of infectious bacteria to build cell walls—a function so basic to cellular life that it seems unlikely that the microbes could evolve a way to resist it. In lab tests, bacteria were exposed to the experimental antibiotics for 21 days without developing resistance, the scientists said.

So far, the new compounds also appear safe and effective in mice, but there are no plans yet to submit it for human testing. “It is early days for these compounds,” Dr. Brady said.