Nikhil Prasad Fact checked by:Thailand Medical News Team Nov 04, 2025 6 hours, 15 minutes ago
Medical News: A Hidden Powerhouse Against Deadly Superbugs
Chemists from the University of Warwick in the UK and Monash University in Australia have made a stunning discovery — a hidden compound that’s 100 times stronger than a widely known antibiotic. This new molecule, called pre-methylenomycin C lactone, has shown remarkable ability to kill deadly drug-resistant bacteria like MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and VRE (Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus).
Scientists Uncover Super Antibiotic 100 Times Stronger Than Existing Drugs
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the world’s greatest medical threats, with experts warning that common infections could soon become untreatable. According to the World Health Organization, the lack of new antibiotics in development is alarming. In this
Medical News report, researchers revealed that this breakthrough antibiotic had been “hiding in plain sight” for decades, overlooked inside a well-known bacterial pathway.
Rediscovering What Science Missed
The discovery came from a collaborative effort under the Monash Warwick Alliance Combatting Emerging Superbug Threats Initiative. By studying the natural pathway that produces the old antibiotic methylenomycin A, researchers identified previously unknown intermediates with extraordinary antibacterial power.
Professor Greg Challis from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Warwick and the Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University explained, “Methylenomycin A was discovered 50 years ago, but no one ever tested its intermediates for antibiotic activity. By deleting certain biosynthetic genes, we found compounds that were dramatically more potent than the original.”
100 Times More Powerful and Harder to Resist
Among these compounds, pre-methylenomycin C lactone stood out as the most potent — showing over 100 times stronger activity against Gram-positive bacteria compared to methylenomycin A. It proved highly effective against the pathogens behind MRSA and VRE infections, both known for their ability to evade current treatments.
Even more encouraging, the bacteria exposed to this new compound did not develop resistance. This unique characteristic could make it a game-changer in the fight against superbugs that have rendered many traditional antibiotics useless.
Dr. Lona Alkhalaf, Assistant Professor at the University of Warwick, expressed surprise that such a powerful compound was discovered in Streptomyces coelicolor — a bacterium that has been studied since the 1950s. She noted that this microbe may have originally produced the stronger antibiotic naturally before evolving to make a weaker version over time.
A New Chapter in Antibiotic Discovery
The research not only offers a potential new treatment but also a new strategy — reexamining natural biosynthetic pathways for hidden intermediates that may posse
ss untapped antibacterial power.
The team has already developed a scalable process for synthesizing pre-methylenomycin C lactone, led by Professor David Lupton from the School of Chemistry at Monash University. This will allow scientists to create analogs and further study how the compound works.
Professor Challis emphasized that exploring such hidden intermediates could reveal more potent antibiotics with reduced resistance potential — a major step forward in overcoming antimicrobial resistance.
With its simple structure, potent antibacterial activity, and resilience to resistance, pre-methylenomycin C lactone could help save millions of lives threatened by drug-resistant infections in the future.
The study findings were published in the peer reviewed Journal of the American Chemical Society
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.5c12501
For the latest on new antibiotics and drug-resistant pathogens, keep on logging to Thailand
Medical News.
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