The accident that could save the world from deadly antibiotic resistance: Scientists stumble across a solution by CHANCE

Antibiotic resistance is deemed to be one of the biggest threats to humanity
The crisis has previously been cited as severe as terrorism and global warming
But British scientists claim they may have stumbled across a simple way forward
They have created several of the drugs already – many of which are as potent, or more so, than standard antibiotics

A solution to reverse the worrying antibiotic resistance crisis may have been found by accident.

Deemed to be one of the biggest threats to humanity, the issue has previously been cited as severe as terrorism and global warming.

It is causing usually harmless infections to turn into deadly superbugs that don’t respond to a range of medications.

But Salford University scientists claim they may have stumbled across a very simple way forward – even though they weren’t looking for antibiotics.

And they have created several of the drugs already – many of which are as potent, or more so, than amoxicillin.

Salford University scientists claim they may have stumbled across a very simple way forward – even though they weren’t looking for antibiotics

Study author Professor Michael Lisanti told MailOnline they were looking into ways of inhibiting mitochondria, the ‘powerhouse’ of cells which fuel fatal tumours, when they made the discovery.

‘Like Alexander Fleming’

He said: ‘Like Alexander Fleming, we weren’t even looking for antibiotics, rather researching into new compounds that might be effective against cancer stem cells.

‘This was under our nose. The bottleneck with antibiotic discovery has been that there was no obvious systematic starting point. We may now have one.

‘These broad-spectrum antibiotics were discovered, by simply screening candidates first on mitochondria in cancer cells.

‘Mitochondria and bacteria have a lot in common. We began thinking that if what we found inhibited mitochondria, it would also kill bacteria.’

He added: ‘So, these new anti-cancer agents should also be potential antibiotics.’

WHAT IS ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE?

For decades, antibiotics have been so overused by GPs and hospital staff that the bacteria have evolved to become resistant.

Doctors claim medicines including penicillin no longer work on sore throats, skin infections and, more seriously, pneumonia.

Chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies claimed last year that the threat is as severe as terrorism – with patients dying from minor cuts after succumbing to drug-resistant bugs.

As a result, it is estimated that the rise of superbugs will cause up to ten million deaths a year by 2050.

Experts warn medicine will be taken back to the ‘dark ages’ if antibiotics are rendered ineffective, with even minor operations becoming impossible without drugs to turn to.

How was the discovery made?

The team sorted through 45,000 compounds, using a three-dimensional structure of the mitochondria.

Using it, they identified 800 small molecules which may inhibit mitochondria based on their structural characteristics.

This was then whittled down into the most promising 10 compounds, according to the research published in the journal Oncotarget.

What did they find?

Their results showed that these synthetic compounds – without any additional chemical engineering – inhibited a broad spectrum of five types of common bacteria.

This included Streptococcus, Pseudomonas, E. coli and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). They also killed the pathogenic yeast, Candida albicans.

Dubbed as ‘mito-riboscins’, they are equally, if not more, potent than standard antibiotics, the researchers said.

Post-antibiotic era

The World Health Organization has previously warned that if nothing is done the world was headed for a ‘post-antibiotic’ era.

It said common infections and minor injuries become killers once again without answers to the growing crisis.

Bacteria can develop drug resistance when people take incorrect doses of antibiotics, or are given out unnecessarily.

When the most common antibiotics fail to work, more expensive types must be tried, resulting in longer illness and treatment, often in hospital.

PENICILLIN: THE ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY

In 1928, while working on influenza virus, Alexander Fleming observed that mould had developed accidentally on a staphylococcus culture plate and that the mould had created a bacteria-free circle around itself.

He was inspired to further experiment and he found that a mould culture prevented growth of staphylococci, even when diluted 800 times. He named the active substance penicillin.

It works works by preventing cells from dividing. It does not allow them to synthesize cell wall, and thus when the cells attempt to duplicate, they rupture and end up killing themselves.

Although penicillin was a game-changer for medicine in the early years of its discovery, the future now looks compromised after recently-developed strains of bacteria have become resistant to it.