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Scientists have discovered a new kind of antibiotic — buried in dirt. Tests in animals show that it is effective against drug-resistant bacteria, and it could lead to desperately needed treatments for deadly antibiotic-resistant infections.

Almost our entire arsenal of antibiotics was discovered in soil, but scientists haven’t gone digging for drugs in decades. That’s because, “screening microbial extracts from soil is thought to be a tapped-out approach,” said Richard Ebright, a scientist at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers. Soil has been “over-mined,” agreed Kim Lewis, director of the Antimicrobial Discovery Center at Northeastern University. But there is still a wealth of useful compounds under foot; we just have to take a closer look.

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Soil is full of microbes that produce toxins to kill their neighbors — a great source of antibiotic drugs. (Wendy Galietta/The Washington Post)

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Click link below for article and video:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/06/15/in-the-hunt-for-new-antibiotics-scientists-hit-pay-dirt/?utm_term=.b88647184645

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