Researchers find new path to antibiotics in dirt
Monday, December 29, 2008 - 12:41
in Health & Medicine
The bacteria teeming in the earth’s soil produce some of the most powerful medicines we have. But only one percent of these potentially life-saving bugs has been studied because they are hard to grow in the lab. Now scientists at The Rockefeller University have taken the genetic material from a cup of dirt in Utah and derived a new family of antibiotics as strong as any used today.