New Antibiotics Discovered

There have been very few new antibiotics to hit the market in recent years, but plenty of antibiotic-resistant viruses which has frustrated hospitals.  There is hope, however.  Scientists discovered in a bag of backyard dirt a powerful new group of antibiotics that they say can wipe out many infections including microbes that have currently been resistant to current antibiotics that are on the market.  Researchers at Rockefeller University reported the discovery of what are called malacidins in the journal Nature Microbiology.  It is the latest in a series of promising antibiotics that scientists have found by using innovative genetic sequencing techniques which allow them to screen thousands of soil samples for bacteria that previously couldn’t be grown or studied in the laboratory.  Rockefeller University scientists found the malacidins only after sifting through 1,500 soil samples.