Drug-resistant MRSA: Hong Kong scientists develop antibiotic that offers hope in the war against superbugs
- Antibiotic-resistant superbugs such as MRSA are a major threat to global health, with conventional treatments failing to work
- Experts from two Hong Kong universities have created a new drug that halts bacteria’s spread
Hong Kong scientists have developed a breakthrough antibiotic to combat superbugs resistant to drugs.
The new treatment, which has been tested on human lung and skins cells, shows no sign of toxicity and will soon go forward to clinical trials on people.
Dr Ma Cong is leading the team of experts from Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Chinese University of Hong Kong’s medicine faculty. He said the research is now in the critical stages of animal studies, conducting infectious disease model studies, and pharmacokinetic studies – that determine what a body does to the drug. Only after these stages can the research move into clinical trials in people for drug development.
“At this moment, there are very few antibiotic-related studies being able to complete such stages worldwide. Our findings so far are very promising. We believe further studies on these compounds will contribute to a new era of antibiotic discovery, contributing towards the fight against superbugs.”
The search for new antibiotics has showed no progress since the mid-1980s, despite global pharmaceutical research and investment.
PolyU’s development of nusbiarylins, a new class of antimicrobial agents, is seen as a breakthrough in the battle against multi-drug resistant bacterial infections.
Its research team, from the university’s State Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, won a Global Innovation Award for the antibiotic at the TechConnect World Innovation Conference in the US this summer.
Most antibiotics currently in the market fight against bacteria through disrupting its DNA synthesis or protein functions. But the innovative antimicrobial mechanism the PolyU team developed focuses on inhibiting the interaction between two proteins, NusB and NusE, crucial for synthesis of bacterial ribosomal RNA (rRNA). Disrupting the proteins’ interaction can prevent bacterial cells from spreading.
Laboratory tests of nusbiarylins against a panel of MRSA strains proved their consistent antibacterial activity, which was much higher than commonly used antibiotics, including vancomycin which is currently labelled as the “last resort” antibiotic drug in the United States.
Studies also indicate that the compounds lead to nearly no breaking of human blood cells meaning they are likely to be safe for injection. The results also show that they are absorbed effectively by the intestine, implying they will be effective for oral medication.
