Antibiotic-resistant microbes date back to 450 million years ago, well before the age of dinosaurs
Thursday, May 11, 2017 - 11:01
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Leading hospital "superbugs," known as the enterococci, arose from an ancestor that dates back 450 million years—about the time when animals were first crawling onto land (and well before the age of dinosaurs), according to a new study led by researchers from Massachusetts Eye and Ear, the Harvard-wide Program on Antibiotic Resistance and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Published online today in Cell, the study authors shed light on the evolutionary history of these pathogens, which evolved nearly indestructible properties and have become leading causes of modern antibiotic-resistant infections in hospitals.