A group of researchers led by scientists from the London Centre for Nanotechnology, in collaboration with a University of Queensland researcher, have discovered a way of using tiny nano-probes to help understand how an antibiotic is effective against bacteria.
Bacteria such as MRSA (commonly known as Golden Staph) are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, posing a major community health problem.
Professor Matt Cooper, the Australian in the team, has this week joined the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at UQ on a $ 4 million Australia Fellowship.
Through the fellowship, he will establish a research program in the development of antibiotics and antifungals that are active against drug-resistant pathogens, in particular those responsible for hospital-acquired infections.
It order to attack this problem we need to understand not only the ways in which bacteria develop and exhibit resistance to antibiotics, but also how new antibiotics can work to kill or slow the growth of resistant bacteria, Professor Cooper said.
To study antibiotic action, the London team made nano-probes coated with molecules found in bacterial cell walls f…
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