The relentless increase in antibiotic resistance among all major groups of bacterial pathogens shows no sign of abating. The situation is exacerbated by a marked decline in the number of new antibiotics entering the marketplace. It is essential that new ways to treat severe bacterial infections are investigated before the antibiotic well runs dry. This review covers many promising approaches, some novel and some based on old ideas that were not considered viable when clinicians were able to exploit a wide palette of cheap and effective antibacterial chemotherapeutics. These approaches include the use of photosensitive dyes, bacteriophage and phage-encoded proteins, and agents that compromise virulence and antibiotic-resistance machineries. I also make a case for continuing in some form with tried and trusted platforms for drug discovery that served society well in the past.
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April 2017
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Three derivatives of one Streptomyces species showing variations in morphological development and pigment production. In this issue, Rebecca Devine, Matthew Hutchings and Neil Holmes explore how the use of new technologies, including improved culture-dependent and -independent techniques, combined with searching underexplored environments, promises to identify a new generation of antibiotics from actinomycete bacteria such as Streptomyces. See pages 1–12 for further details. Image kindly provided by Paul A. Hoskisson (University of Strathclyde, UK).
Review Article|
April 04 2017
Novel therapeutics for bacterial infections Available to Purchase
Peter W. Taylor
1School of Pharmacy, University College London, London WC1N 1AX, U.K.
Correspondence: Peter W. Taylor ([email protected])
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Publisher: Portland Press Ltd
Received:
January 13 2017
Revision Received:
February 22 2017
Accepted:
February 22 2017
Online ISSN: 2397-8562
Print ISSN: 2397-8554
© 2017 The Author(s); published by Portland Press Limited on behalf of the Biochemical Society and the Royal Society of Biology
2017
Emerg Top Life Sci (2017) 1 (1): 85–92.
Article history
Received:
January 13 2017
Revision Received:
February 22 2017
Accepted:
February 22 2017
Citation
Daniel Walker, Peter W. Taylor; Novel therapeutics for bacterial infections. Emerg Top Life Sci 21 April 2017; 1 (1): 85–92. doi: https://doi.org/10.1042/ETLS20160017
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