Antibiotics funding splurge gets mixed reception
Nature.com - 07/28/2016
“I have mixed feelings about this,” says Kim Lewis, an antibiotics researcher at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. “If more money is going into the general area of antibiotics, that’s a good thing. But I’m really surprised that we are getting another influx of funds into development rather than into discovery.”
The main problem, says Lewis, is the lack of compounds that can punch through the outer membranes of ‘gram-negative’ super-microbes such as Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae1, 2. Researchers need to work out how to systematically make or find compounds that can slip through bacterial protective barriers, he says.
“I have mixed feelings about this,” says Kim Lewis, an antibiotics researcher at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. “If more money is going into the general area of antibiotics, that’s a good thing. But I’m really surprised that we are getting another influx of funds into development rather than into discovery.”
The main problem, says Lewis, is the lack of compounds that can punch through the outer membranes of ‘gram-negative’ super-microbes such as Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae1, 2. Researchers need to work out how to systematically make or find compounds that can slip through bacterial protective barriers, he says.
