Nature journal published a groundbreaking research on Wednesday. Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, in collaboration with University of Bonn from Germany and with Britain’s Selcia Limited, found a new antibiotic called teixobactin that could belong to a class, a whole new one, of drugs. The method to produce the drug itself was unusual.

Penicillin was the first antibiotic to be discovered in 1928. Alexander Fleming made the discovery. For almost 60 years (until 1987) were found more and more antibiotics to fight against bacteria. Over-prescribing and the lack of new ones caused an increase of resistance from microbes. The major threat in modern medicine is thought to be superbugs that evolve very quickly, bacteria more and resistant to nowadays antibiotics. The World Health Organization alerted in 2014 about this situation and said that something radical has to be done.

Teixobactin’s discovery was the result of posing a question by researcher and medical scientists. Soil is thought to be teeming with new and potent antibiotics thanks to the fact that bacteria found new methods to fight against other microorganisms. But the strict conditions in a laboratory didn’t allow researchers to observe around 99 percent of them. The method Northeastern University’s researchers found involve the growing of the microbes in dirt operating an electronic chip. After this step is accomplished it is necessary to isolate the chemical compounds of their antibiotic. The best news is that the researchers said the drug behaves in a totally new way. This makes the bacteria to have a low or no resistance to it.

Northeastern University in the United States great professor Kim Lewis said that “The discovery of this novel compound challenges long-held scientific beliefs and holds great promise for treating an array of menacing infections.”

Teixobactin testing in mice easily cured with no side effects severe, possibly deadly infections. The discovery of Teixobactin is a pivotal one. The drug shapes a new class of antibiotics and has proven to be highly effective in the fight against bacterial infections like Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium difficile and Mycobacterium tuberculous.

Independent scientists welcome the finding, but say that human trials, scheduled two years from now, are the key to understanding and putting teixobactin to actual use. If all goes as planned, after three more years it would be mass produced and delivered to the healthcare system.
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