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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Drug delivery with the flip of a light switch

Turn it on, turn it off — a new antibiotic responds to visible light.
Escherichia coli bacterium.

The bacterium Escherichia coli is vulnerable to a new antibiotic that responds to visible light. Credit: Steve Gschmeissner/SPL/Getty

A common medication has been converted into the first antibiotic to employ visible light as an on–off switch.

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Nature 551, 545 (2017)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-017-07428-w

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