A newly recognized compound can wipe out some of the most troublesome antibiotic-resistant bacteria, laboratory tests show. The drug works by sabotaging a microbe’s production of fatty acids.
Scientists at Merck Research Laboratories in Rahway, N.J., discovered the compound, which they call platensimycin.
The findings are preliminary but impressive, says Eric D. Brown, a microbiologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
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