This powder could rescue antibiotics
Join Crick Group leader Jeannine Hess as she explains how her lab is using metal complexes and blue light to fight back against the increasing threat of antimicrobial resistance.
Each year, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the reason that more than a million people die from infections that no longer respond to existing antibiotics, making AMR one of the greatest global health challenges of our time.
Listen to Jeannine Hess, a Group Leader at the Crick, and Lars Stevens Cullinane, a member of her lab, explain how they use metal complexes and blue light to fight back against the increasing threat of antimicrobial resistance.
Ever since antibiotics were developed, harmful bacteria that cause infection and disease have found ways to evade them. One of the ways they do this is by changing the proteins on their surface so an antibiotic cannot bind.
Jeanine and her lab are working to bring back the power of antibiotics. They are using metal complexes that, when activated under blue light, produce highly-reactive compounds that break up the proteins.
When these proteins are destroyed, the bacteria can once again be killed by the antibiotics.
