The Hunt for Antibiotics

The crisis of antibiotic-resistance bacteria is growing and it’s a significant threat to the global public health, necessitating the urgent discovery of novel antibiotic agents. Soil is a rich reservoir of microbial diversity and is a good source of new antibiotics. A soil sample was taken from my backyard in Kansas and then its microbes isolated and screened against safe relatives of ESKAPE pathogens, a group of pathogens that are responsible for the majority of infections. The microbe that was shown as promising in inhibiting the ESKAPE pathogens was then studied more carefully. These findings indicate that soil-derived microbes have inhibiting effects against Staphylococcus epidermidis and Bacillus subtilis and may address the critical issue of antibiotic resistance. This is one step closer on new antibiotic discovery and development.