Significant discovery in the fight against antibiotic resistance

It's already been almost four decades since the last generation of antibiotics was developed, allowing new resistances to emerge in bacterial populations. This is a major public health problem on a global scale, which, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), causes 1.27 million deaths a year worldwide, including more than 500 in Belgium, and is only getting worse.

Niels Vander Elst, a Belgian researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm has recently made an interesting discovery that could reverse this trend. In collaboration with his colleagues, he has apparently discovered an enzyme known as endolysin. This enzyme, produced by a virus, is able to infect and kill bacteria, while remaining completely harmless to humans and animals.

Using laboratory tests on mice, the Belgian researcher noted that adding the protein from this virus to an antibiotic treatment made the resistant bacteria receptive to the treatment once again. This means that by simply adding this new ingredient to an existing treatment, scientists can make antibiotics effective again.

Of course, the process needs to undergo some further development stages before doctors can actually prescribe treatments using this technique, which also has the added bonus of being a very low-cost solution, according to Niels Vander Elst.

Several other Belgian researchers have also been opening up new avenues in the fight against antibiotic resistance.