Molecular "LEGO Set" Advances Efforts.

• Position: SYNTHETIC ANTIBIOTICS

Antibiotic resistance is one of the world's most urgent public health threats. In the U.S. alone, tens of thousands of deaths result each year from drug-resistant strains of common bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus faecium, which can cause virtually untreatable hospital-acquired infections. Perilously few new classes of antibiotics are being developed to fight infections that have become resistant to traditional treatments, and bringing any new drugs to market can take decades.

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, are tackling antibiotic resistance using a different approach: redesigning existing antibiotic molecules to evade a bacterium's resistance mechanisms. By devising a set of molecular LEGO-like pieces that can be altered and joined together to form larger molecules, the researchers have created what they hope is the first of many "rebuilds" of drugs that had been shelved due to antibiotic resistance.

"The aim is to revive classes of drugs that have not been able to achieve their full potential, especially those already shown to be safe in humans," says Ian Seiple...