Combating superbugs

(WJAR) Researchers are inching closer to the development of a new class of drugs to attack life-threatening superbugs.

This has become a major focus as the development of new drugs isn’t keeping pace with the rise of drug-resistant bacteria.

“They’re smarter. They can out compete all the chemicals that we throw at them,” says Dr. Eleftherios Mylonakis, chief of infectious diseases at Rhode Island Hospital and The Miriam Hospital in Providence.

That’s starting to change with the discovery of a third compound that’s showing promise in outsmarting these potentially lethal bacteria — MRSA, in particular.

“We found a series of compounds that target the bacterial membrane,” Dr. Mylonakis says, “because the membrane is something that the bacteria need in order to survive.”

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