It’s uh me, Bactario!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Antibiotic resistant bacteria are emerging everywhere. Like goombahs in Super Mario! How do we stop them?
Ready player one: Amninder Kaur, and team, from Austria and Germany.
They cultivated a rare bacterium that naturally makes a NEW antibiotic! The researchers used mass spectrometry to identify the types of atoms in the antibiotic. They used another technique, NMR, to deduce the antibiotic’s structure, and named it saarvienin A.
Saarvienin A’s structure is unlike existing antibiotics, so common resistance mechanisms are ineffective. It defeated dangerous bacteria that resisted five other types of key antibiotics!
It still needs more development, but it’s a promising weapon in the bacteria boss battle.
Reference: Kaur, A., Guerrero‐Garzón, J. F., Rasheed, S., Zehl, M., Fries, F., Morgenstern, B., Zotchev, S. B., & Müller, R. (2025). Saarvienin A—A Novel Glycopeptide with Potent Activity against Drug‐Resistant Bacteria. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, e202425588. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202425588