They design a ‘super-killer’ drug to combat multi-resistant bacteria

Drug-resistant superbugs are a serious global public health problem. The WHO considers it one of the public health problems to be solved. For example, resistance of bacteria to drugs such as antibiotics and antimicrobials will kill almost 80,000 people in countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Union each year and will put pressure on resources . hospitals, already greatly overloaded after the covid-19 pandemic because the costs for health systems and economies will continue to increase. Furthermore, one in five bacterial infections is resistant to antibiotic treatment in OECD countries and resistance is responsible for the deaths of around 79,000 people each year in OECD and EU countries. a figure that is 2.4 times the number of deaths from tuberculosis, influenza and HIV and AIDS combined in 2020. In Europe alone, multidrug-resistant bacteria cause 33,000 deaths per year and generate additional health spending of around €1.5 billion. But when faced with big problems, there are solutions. A study in ‘Science’ now presents a molecule that is a ‘super killer’ of these resistant bacteria. Related News standard No Antibiotics are not the only culprits of ABC superbugs The information will allow the development of more effective public health interventions to stop the spread of infections resistant to treatment The new antibiotic designed by researchers at Harvard University (USA. ) overcomes antimicrobial resistance mechanisms that have rendered many modern medications ineffective. A team led by Andrew Myers shows that their synthetic compound, cresomycin, kills many strains of drug-resistant bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. “Although we do not yet know whether cresomycin and similar drugs are safe and effective in humans, our results show significantly improved inhibitory activity against a long list of pathogenic bacterial strains that kill more than a million people each year, compared to clinically approved. antibiotics,” explains Myers. Cresomycin is one of several promising compounds Myers’ team has developed, with the goal of helping win the war against superbugs. They will continue to develop these compounds through preclinical profiling studies. In addition to new drugs, it is essential to design strategies that sensitize bacteria to existing antibiotics and avoid the selection of resistance Sara Hernando-Amado CNB The researchers arrived at cresomycin using what they call component-based synthesis, a method pioneered by the Myers laboratory that involves building large molecular components of equal complexity and putting them together in later stages, such as pre-construction sections of a complicated LEGO set before assembling it. them. This modular, fully synthetic system allows them to manufacture and test not just one, but hundreds of target molecules, greatly accelerating the drug discovery process. Sara Hernando-Amado, a researcher specialized in the ecology and evolution of antibiotic resistance at the National Biotechnology Center (CNB-CSIC), is not so optimistic. In statements to the Science Media Center, he points out that “an approach based solely on the development of new drugs is not going to solve the problem of resistance to antibiotics, but rather the solution involves a rational design of strategies capable of restricting the evolution of the Pathogenic bacteria. This is because bacteria evolve extraordinarily quickly, selecting adaptive mechanisms when they are under selective pressure. In fact, this same group described eravacycline years ago, for which resistance mechanisms have already been described in several pathogens. What is at stake is clear. “Antibiotics form the foundation on which modern medicine is built,” says Myers. “Without antibiotics, many cutting-edge medical procedures, such as surgeries, cancer treatments and organ transplants, cannot be performed.” Although Hernando-Amado clarifies, “in addition to producing new drugs, it is essential to design strategies that sensitize bacteria to existing antibiotics and also avoid the selection of resistance; something that we have called transient collateral sensitivity and that can be induced in antibiotic-resistant clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa.