A compound that kills bacteria and cleaves their DNA to prevent them passing on drug-resistant genes has been designed by researchers in India.
The increasing ineffectiveness of antibiotics and the absence of suitable new ones are problems long recognised by the medical community. Bacteria can mutate and adapt to become resistant so the stock of effective antibiotics is diminishing. In a recent report, the UK’s Chief Medical Officer stated that increasingly resistant microbes represent a global threat that in the next 20 years could see many more deaths associated with what were routine and safe surgeries.
Read the full article in Chemistry World»
Read the original journal article in ChemComm – it’s free to download until 11th July:
A prospective antibacterial for drug-resistant pathogens: a dual warhead amphiphile designed to track interactions and kill pathogenic bacteria by membrane damage and cellular DNA cleavage
Durairaj Thiyagarajan, Sudeep Goswami, Chirantan Kar, Gopal Das and Aiyagari Ramesh
Chem. Commun., 2014, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C4CC02354D, Communication
