Next Generation Antibiotics

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: in marshes. But unbelievingly, they combat these injuries very promptly. Recent laboratory tests show that tiny amounts of alligator blood extract known as alligacin, kill many microbes, including Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a dangerous antibiotic resistant strain, and help fight HIV.

Researchers in the US have engineered versions of short proteins called antimicrobial peptides to make them more resilient. When the researchers added these agents called peptoids to cultures of bacteria known to cause food poisoning, pneumonia, ear and heart infections, the peptoids destroyed them.

Promising research efforts indicate that synthetic peptides are an attractive complement to the existing arsenal of antibiotics and hold forth immense potential in combating diseases, says Sharon Mathews, research analyst, healthcare, Frost & Sullivan.

If bacteria evolve to become drug-resistant, why not subject them to bacteria-fighting microbes, called phages that evolve along with them? Phage therapy is widely used in Eastern Europe and scientists in the US too are looking at them to solve the problem of antibiotic resistance. When ingested, phages cure infections but leave the rest of the body unaffected.

The message is loud and clear: natural diversity appears to be a novel source for new drugs worldwide. A paradigm shift in infectious disease research has been initiated. “Primarily, the whole concept of antibiotics originated with bacterial infections and the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s saw a boom in the research and development of antibiotics targeting several bacteria. The disturbing rise in serious diseases and infections is currently driving the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to focus on new leads to stay ahead of disease causing microbes capable of developing resistance,” informs Mathews.

Recently, the department of biotechnology (DBT) under the ministry of science and technology has initiated a project to tap the global antibiotics market. This public-private-partnership project involves nine institutes, with Nicholas Piramal Research & Development Ltd (NRDL) as an industrial partner.

It envisages a mega-scale screening programme for various environmental isolates and is the first project in the country in which industry and the academia will work together to screen such a large number of bacterial isolates.

Different academic institutes will isolate organisms specific to diverse ecological niches. For each sample, isolation of bacteria will be carried out on 30 different growth media.