New version of common antibiotic designed to combat superbugs

A new version of a common antibiotic has been developed by researchers in order to make it more potent and effective against antibiotic-resistant infections.

Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have found a way to structurally modify vancomycin, a highly effective antibiotic that disrupts bacteria's ability to form cell walls, to allow it to be used without a risk of resistance emerging.

Building on previous studies that made the antibiotic stronger, the new research adds a third modification that interferes with cell walls in a new way, resulting in a thousandfold increase in activity.

Not only does this mean doctors would need to use less of the antibiotic to fight infections, but it also gives the medicine three independent mechanisms of action, making it extremely difficult for bacteria to counteract it.

The next step for the research will be to find a more streamlined way of synthesising the modified vancomycin in the lab, as the current method takes 30 steps.

Dale Boger, co-chair of The Scripps Research Institute's department of chemistry, said: "Antibiotics are total cures for bacterial infections. Making this molecule is important, even by the current approach, if the failure of antibiotics continues."

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