Researchers discover 'holy grail' compound which kills all bugs

Researchers discovered the antibiotic which can take out even monstrous bacteria.
Researchers discovered the antibiotic which can take out even monstrous bacteria. Photo credit: Princeton/ Matilda Luk

Researchers have found the "holy grail of antibiotics research" - a new treatment which can kill all bugs, even those immune to other drugs.

A team of Princeton researchers announced the discovery of the new compound in the science journal Cell on Wednesday.

The compound can puncture the walls of bacteria, including ones which are Gram-negative - which means they have an outer layer of armour which makes them hard to penetrate.

No new classes of Gram-negative-killing drugs have come to market in nearly 30 years, the researchers said.

"This is the first antibiotic that can target Gram-positives and Gram-negatives without resistance," said Princeton professor of biology Zemer Gitai.

"From a 'why it's useful' perspective, that's the crux. But what we're most excited about as scientists is something we've discovered about how this antibiotic works... that we are hoping is generalisable, leading to better antibiotics and new types of antibiotics in the future."

Zemer Gitai and James Martin.
Zemer Gitai and James Martin. Photo credit: Princeton Communications

James Martin, a 2019 PhD graduate who worked on the compound, compared the discovery to riding a unicorn - "something everyone wants but no one really believes exists". 

"My first challenge was convincing the lab that it was true," he said.

KC Huang, a former postdoctoral researcher at Princeton, said it could revolutionise antibiotic development.

"The thing that can't be overstated is that antibiotic research has stalled over a period of many decades. It's rare to find a scientific field which is so well studied and yet so in need of a jolt of new energy."

"A study like this says that we can go back and revisit what we thought were the limitations on our development of new antibiotics, from a societal point of view, it's fantastic to have new hope for the future."

The team says despite bacteria often evolving to resist the new treatment, those exposed to their new treatment were unable to generate any resistance.

In the testing stages, researchers used a strain of N gonorrhoeae from the World Health Organization which is resistant to every known antibiotic.

"Our guy still killed this strain," Gitai said. "We're pretty excited about that."

One of the main issues the researchers had to overcome was making sure the compound dose wasn't too strong.

The original dose killed human cells at the same level as the bacterial cells, meaning it ran the risk of killing the patient before the bacteria.

The researchers were eventually able to cure mice infected with the illness.