Hong Kong team develops new antibiotics that could fight 'superbugs'

Hong Kong Polytechnic University scholars have developed new antibiotics that could fight "superbugs"Photo: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University's official websiteantibiotic resistance is one of the world's most serious threats to human health, new antibiotics are seen as a key response strategy, but research and development efforts since the mid-1980s have encountered bottlenecks, A.D.AKey Laboratory for Chemical Biology and Drug Research and Assistant Professor of Applied Biology and Chemical Science, led the team to successfully develop innovative small molecules that are very different from the existing principles of antibiotic operation that separate important proteins in bacterial cells, thereby blocking cell ribosome synthesis and inhibiting bacterial growthexperiments have shown that the compound, collectively known as Nusbiarylins, has far more antibacterial capacity than commonly used antibiotics, and some are even higher than vancomycin, which is likened to "last line of defense" antibiotics, and have no significant toxicity to human cellsMa Cong pointed out that the study has reached the stage of animal testing of infection model research and pharmacological characteristics research, is a rare progress in antibiotic-related research and development, the results are encouraging, and believe that the future is expected to further develop a new generation of antibiotics, in the human battle against "superbugs" to make a breakthrough.