An entirely new kind of antibiotic has been found to be 100% successful in animal trials in eliminating one of three antibiotic-resistant infections believed to pose the greatest risk to human health.
Known as Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii, or CRAB for short, it is classified as a priority 1 pathogen by the WHO, a significant cause of damaging infections in patients, particularly those on ventilators, and resistant to several antibiotics.
Designed by Roche Pharma Research in Basel, Switzerland, the new antibiotic is called Zosurabalpin, and it was able to defeat strains of CRAB-induced pneumonia and sepsis in mouse models.
Many resistant bacterial species come from a family known as Gram-negative bacteria, which boast a defensive shell made of a toxic substance called lipopolysaccharide.
The Guardian reports that no new drug has been developed to combat Gram-negative bacteria in 50 years. In one of the preliminary studies for efficacy, a team from Harvard found that Zosurabalpin prevented the bacteria from transporting the LPS to its exterior shell, rendering it vulnerable to all kinds of attacks.
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“LPS allows bacteria to live in harsh environments, and it also allows them to evade attack by our immune system,” Dr. Michael Lobritz, the global head of infectious diseases at Roche Pharma, told the Guardian.
“This is the first time we’ve found anything that operates in this way, so it is unique in its chemical makeup and mechanism of action.”
Stopping CRAB is not the end of the medical crisis of antibiotic-resistant infections, but some of those involved in Zosurabalpin’s development believe it opens something of a door to experimenting with similar mechanisms against antibiotic-resistant E. coli or Pseudomonas aeruginosa, the latter of which has been shown to be vulnerable to similar drugs.
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Roche Pharma is tempering expectations as efficacy in animal trials doesn’t equate to human efficacy. A Zosurabalpin trial is already underway in humans.
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