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Four stories of antibacterial breakthroughs

Old drugs and new tricks keep researchers one step ahead of antibiotic resistance.
  1. Natasha Gilbert

    1. Natasha Gilbert is a freelance science writer based in Washington, DC.

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The world is running out of effective antibiotics. Without action, bacterial infections that can now be shrugged off with a simple course of treatment could again become common causes of death. Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is blunting the effectiveness of drugs on which people have relied for almost a century, and too few new drugs have moved from the laboratory into clinical trials to add to the armamentarium. According to the World Health Organization, 51 antibiotics are in trials in people, but only 17 of those are considered to be innovative — with the remainder closely related to existing drugs. Fewer than 10 of the 51 are likely to make it through the minefield of drug development to market within five years.

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Nature 555, S5-S7 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-02475-3

This article is part of Nature Outlook: The future of medicine, an editorially independent supplement produced with the financial support of third parties. About this content.

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 06 November 2019: An earlier version of this article incorrectly implied that bacteria have a nucleus.

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