A new drug can destroy bacterial resistance

A new study led by the University of Queensland in Australia has found that a drug originally developed for Alzheimer's disease can disrupt bacteria's resistance to antibiotics, providing new ideas for addressing the growing public health problem of bacterial resistance.
bacterial resistance has become one of the biggest threats to public health worldwide. The World Health Organization estimates that if the problem is not properly addressed, it will kill about 10 million people worldwide each year by 2050.
team led by researchers at the University of Queensland has developed a drug called PBT2, which was originally designed to treat neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease. Previous studies have linked these neurodegenerative diseases to elevated levels of heavy metals in the brain. The function of PBT2 is to disturb the interaction between human cells and metal matter in the body, thereby reducing the level of heavy metals in the patient's brain. The drug has passed Phase I and Phase II clinical trials, but has not yet been approved for market.
Mark Walker, a professor at the University of Queensland who led the study, said they found that PBT2 can also disrupt bacteria's resistance to antibiotics, as physiological activity of bacteria is affected when the body's metal content is altered, and bacteria that are already resistant become more resistant to antibiotics. Experiments with a large number of drug-resistant bacteria confirm this.
Walker said PBT2 could make antibiotics that fail bacteria effective again,
sovering the use of PBT2 as a 'drug-resistant destroyer' would be a new strategy to combat bacterial resistance."
results have been published in the American online academic journal Microbiology. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)