CNN reports on a 13,000-year-old glacier in a Romanian cave, where scientists say a bacterial strain they thawed and analyzed “is resistant to 10 modern antibiotics used to treat diseases such as urinary tract infections and tuberculosis.”
But there’s no evidence the bacteria is harmful to humans, CNN notes, and “The scientists said the insights they have gained from the work may help in the fight against modern superbugs that can’t be treated by commonly used antibiotics.”
Analysis of the Psychrobacter SC65A.3 genome revealed 11 genes that are potentially able to kill or stop the growth of other bacteria, fungi and viruses… Matthew Holland, a postdoctoral researcher in medicinal chemistry at the UK’s University of Oxford, said that researchers were searching in new and extreme environments, such as ice caves and the seafloor, for biomolecules that could be developed into new antibiotic drugs. He was not involved in the new study. “The team in Romania found this particular bug had resistance to 10 reasonably advanced synthetic antibiotics and that in itself is
interesting,” he said. “But what they report as well is that it secreted molecules that were able to kill a variety of already resistant, harmful bacteria.
“So the hope is that can we look at the molecules it makes and see if there’s the possibility within those molecules to make new antibiotics.”
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