Hurrah, it’s been a long time since a completely novel antibiotic has been discovered, i.e. without tampering or enhancing old ones.

A group at Boston university has now found an antibiotic, termed teixobactin, that can be used against Clostridium difficile infections. This species of bacteria causes a horrible type diarrhea that is often resistant to treatment with traditional antibiotics. And that is not all, other bacteria sensitive to teixobactin are Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Teixobactin, isolated from a soil bacterium, is active against gram + bacteria. The antibiotic binds to a precursor of the bacterial cell wall’s peptidoglycan and techoic acid thereby inhibiting cell wall synthesis. And without a cell wall, a bacterium is unlikely to survive 😉

Clinical trials are underway ..

Read the good news on: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v517/n7535/full/nature14098.html