Weird (But Good) Pharmacological Science

The Times (U.K.) reports the development of a new antibiotic that kills so-called superbugs, including gram-negative bacteria normally resistant to antibiotics.

Researchers from Princeton University in the US said that the new compounds, which are being called irresistins, act like a “poison arrow”. They pierce the outer wall of the bacteria and destroy a substance that lies inside called folate, an essential building block of the microbe’s genetic material.

In the laboratory they killed off a strain of gonorrhoea resistant to all other antibiotics. They were also effective against gram-negative bacteria, which have an outer layer that shrugs off most antibiotics. No new classes of gram-negative-killing drugs have come to the market in nearly three decades.

The website msn.com has more on irresistins, including that the original research was published in the technical journal Cell. Hat tip to John Hinderaker at Power Line for the link. As John notes and I concur, this may well be the most important news you will have read this year.