New antibiotic could be effective against resistant bacteria
A new class of antibiotics has shown promising results against an antibiotic-resistant bacterium in initial studies. However, the active ingredient developed by researchers at the pharmaceutical company Roche in Basel is still a long way from being used in practice.
According to the study published on Wednesday in the scientific journal “Nature”, the newly developed active substance called zosurabalpine was effective in the laboratory and in mice against the antibiotic-resistant bacterium Acinetobacter baumannii – a typical hospital germ that can cause pneumonia, for example.
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Antibiotic resistance has become an acute threat to health in recent decades, the researchers emphasised in the study. The bacterium targeted by the new active ingredient is particularly worrying. This is because it belongs to the so-called gram-negative bacteria, which are surrounded by inner and outer membranes that are difficult for most antibiotics to overcome. It repeatedly leads to outbreaks of infection in intensive care units around the world.
“Any new class of antibiotics that is able to treat infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria such as carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii would be a major breakthrough,” said Michael Lobritz from Roche, who was involved in the study, when asked by the Keystone-SDA news agency. However, further studies are needed to know whether Zosurabalpine will bring about this breakthrough.
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