Nature has recently discovered an antibiotic combination to reduce Staphylococcus aureus resistance

Researchers at the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) have developed a technique that can measure the long-term effects
of antibiotic combinations or cocktails.
These combinations make great sense for the scientific and medical communities, as the use of a single antibiotic often leads to rapid bacterial resistance to these drugs
.

The study, published in the journal Nature, was led by Technion researchers, Professor Roy Kishony from the Faculty of Biology, and Dr.
Viktória Lázár, a postdoc in his lab who currently works
in the Department of Synthetic and Systems Biology at the Center for Biological Research in Szeged, Hungary.

The researchers found that in many cases, combinations of several antibiotics may actually reduce the long-term effectiveness of the treatment — meaning that combinations of drugs may prove to be less successful
than individual drugs.
However, they point to specific combinations that do succeed in stopping the development of drug resistance, thus protecting patients from aggressive bacteria for a long period of time
.

The bacterium tested in the study was Staphylococcus aureus, a particularly ferocious bacterium that developed resistance to a variety of
antibiotics.
This bacterium is the leading cause of
nosocomial (or clinic) infections.
The study was carried out in the laboratory and in animal models that were larvae of the large wax borer large arcade moth
.

Antibiotics are a class of drugs that play a central role in modern medicine and save lives
every day.
About a century ago, natural antibiotic substances
developed by fungi and yeast evolved in the research of Sir Alexander Fleming in London, Australian-born Howard Walter Flory, and Ernst Boris Chan, a Russian-German-Jewish descendant who emigrated from Berlin to England.
Together, the three won the 1945 Nobel Prize
in Physiology or Medicine.
Over the past century, antibiotic treatment has saved hundreds of millions of lives
.

However, the success of antibiotic treatment has turned into a double-edged sword, as the widespread use of these antimicrobials has led to the evolutionary development of bacteria that develop resistance
.
This trend raises legitimate concerns about the post-antibiotic era

During this period, bacteria will no longer respond to antibiotic drugs, and people will die from infections
that are now considered mild and undangerous, as in the past.

Professor Kishony, one of the leading experts in the field of antibiotic resistance, has developed methods to estimate in advance how resistant a bacterium is to an antibiotic today, and even predict the level of
resistance it may develop in the future.
In the current study, the combination of different antibiotic drugs that prevent the formation of resistance was examined
.

The researchers noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the use of antibiotics, although SARS-CoV-2 is not affected by antibiotics because it is a virus and not a bacterium
.
However, the use of antibiotics can help people with COVID-19 avoid secondary bacterial infections
.
As antibiotic use grows, the evolution of drug-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus accelerates
.

In conclusion, Technion's researchers found that combinations of antibiotics may impair the effectiveness of treatment, pointing to specific combinations
that accelerate or inhibit the development of drug-resistant bacteria.
In doing so, they help pave the way
for more effective treatment and containment of the "drug resistance epidemic" that threatens humanity.