The past few years have been hot for the discovery of antibiotic producing bacteria. It isn’t just here at Penn State Schuylkill, but institutes around the world are doing similar work. Even though we just started in January 2020, we hope we can be soon adding our news about unique antibiotic producers to headlines everywhere.
This news article from NewsWeek discusses a major find – a bacteria that works against MRSA (otherwise known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) (Quinn and Dyson, Newsweek, 2019). This find is huge given how many people contract MRSA each year and can potentially suffer from its toxic effects. The microbe that researchers found is considered “Streptomyces-like” and has been named Streptomyces sp. myrophorea. What is so interesting about this find is where it was found, Ireland (and here we are mentioning it the day after St. Patrick’s Day). The region, according to the research team, was known for its healing properties and even has a connection back to the Druids, so it’s like a natural jump to find a special bacterial species in this area.
Check out the article here at NewsWeek: https://www.newsweek.com/antibiotic-resistance-superbug-ancient-soil-bacteria-ireland-streptomyces-1283324 and the original article at Frontiers in Microbiology (the pdf is also below to help you read more) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2018.02458/full.
A Novel Alkaliphilic Streptomyces Inhibits ESKAPE Pathogens