New Antibiotic Assisting Drug

One of major concerns regarding the use of antibiotics today is that more and more strains of bacteria are growing resistant to them. One of the ways in which the bacteria avoid being destroyed by the drugs is by producing a layer of biofilm over the colony. Biofilm is a layer of sticky cells that "shield" the bacteria underneath them from the antibiotic treatment. Even though the antibiotics are able to clear up some of the biofilm, they are not effective enough to keep the bacteria from regrowing after the treatment is discontinued. In addition to this, the bacteria have genes that increase their resistance to the antibiotics.

However, researchers have now found a compound that is able to tackle both of these problems. This molecule not only destroys the biofilm, but it also makes the bacteria lose their resistance to the antibiotic drugs. In studies that the researchers conducted, the new compound improved the effectiveness of penicillin by over a hundred times. It also improved the effectiveness of one of the biofilm-reducing drugs by a factor of a thousand.

This article really caught my interest because there is a lot of concern about the overuse of certain antibiotics and how it causes the bacteria to develop a resistance to them. These resistant strains can be really dangerous because it is hard to treat them. Now, there is a way to counter that resistance and make antibiotics effective again.

Sandhya Ramesh
VTPP 435-502

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