Keeping Bugs from Pumping Drugs

A new way to defeat antibiotic-resistant microbes?

Give a baby a spoonful of medicine and phttt! In an instant, he’s spit it all over the room. Getting the medicine down, however, isn’t the whole battle. Even when an antibiotic’s been swallowed, the microbe that it targets may eject it before the infection has been quelled.

In the chemical arms race between modern medicine and quickly evolving bacteria and fungi, some researchers are now opening a new front.