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May 15, 2019

Decoy antibiotics could get around bacteria’s defences

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Imperial medical students have helped to devise a new type of ‘decoy’ drug to tackle infections that are resistant to antibiotics.

In lab tests on bacterial cultures, the new successfully killed a strain of . It works by delivering two antibiotics, one of which is effectively hidden. When the fight against the first ‘decoy’ antibiotic, this action opens up the drug, triggering the second antibiotic into action.

This enables the second antibiotic to be delivered in a targeted way, only being released where it encounters drug-resistant bacteria. The findings could help prolong the life of existing antibiotics by slowing the rate at which bacteria become resistant to them.

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