Antibiotics have been deployed to fight pathogenic bacteria since the early 20th Century. However, more and more drug-resistant bacteria are emerging due to rampant and increasing antibiotic misuse or abuse, according to researchers at the institution’s Genomics Research Center.

Vancomycin and teicoplanin, both glycopeptide antibiotics, are at present the last resort for treating serious gram-positive infections, they said, adding that many microbiologists believe the appearance of vancomycin resistant bacteria will render the antibiotic line-of-defense useless in humans, indicating an eminent need for a new antibiotic as the drug of last resort for bacterial infection.

After two years of research, Tsung-Lin Li — an assistant research fellow at the center’s Functional Genomics Research Team — explained that the team has developed a new enzyme that is able to transform teicoplanin into a novel glycopeptide, indicating a new path to modify existing antibiotics to produce variations with better efficacy and efficiency.

On the importance of their finding, Li noted that the results are helpful in accelerating the development of more potent antibiotics that have been desperately awaited for years.

Their finding has been published online by the renowned Journal of American Chemical Society and will also be published in print.

Subscribe to The China Post and save.  Click hereSharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Enter your comments - 800 characters max

Receive China Post promos

Respond to this email