After learning how to grow what had been uncultivable bacteria, a group of scientists at Northeastern University say they believe they have opened the door to a new generation of antibiotics.
The breakthrough came after the researchers ID'd chemicals that were needed to grow cultivable bacteria and found that the same process triggered growth in uncultivable strains. That new mechanism "provides us with a general approach to finding other types of growth factors that will give us access to additional classes of uncultured bacteria," said Professor of Biology Kim Lewis.
Today's antibiotics were developed by testing their ability to kill or inhibit bacteria that is grown in a lab. But scientists had been stymied in their work related to the large majority of bacteria strains that didn't grow in the lab. Now that obstacle has at least partially been removed.
- here's the story from Medical News Today