A new test revealed that FDA-approved antibiotics — available at your neighborhood pharmacy — can effectively treat superbugs.
A new test revealed that FDA-approved antibiotics — available at your neighborhood pharmacy — can effectively treat superbugs. They are not prescribed, however, because the gold-standard test predicts they will not work. The new test may improve the way antibiotics are developed, tested and prescribed — and it is openly available to all.
The research has significant implications in the fight against bacterial resistance by optimizing the prescription and use of currently available antibiotics and enhancing the efforts to discover new ones.
Developed by a research team of UC Santa Barbara scientists, the antibiotic study was published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine. The research addressed a fundamental flaw in the healthcare paradigm for determining antibiotic resistance. It does not account for environmental conditions in the body that impact drug potency.
By simulating conditions in the body, the new test identified several effective antibiotics rejected by standard testing. Further, when the new and standard tests agreed — a nearly perfect prediction of treatment success or failure was observed.
Read more at University of California, Santa Barbara
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