Fighting “superbugs” has required physicians to seek new and
more powerful drugs for their arsenals. Unfortunately, in time,
these treatments also can fall prey to the same microbial
ability to become drug resistant. Now, a research team at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) may have found
a way to break the cycle that doesn’t demand the deployment of a
next-generation medical therapy: preventing “superbugs” from
genetically propagating drug resistance. The team presents their
findings at the annual meeting of the American Crystallographic
Association (ACA), held July 28 – Aug. 1 in Boston, Mass. For
years, the drug vancomycin has been the last-stand treatment for
life-threatening cases of methicilin-resistant Staphylococcus
aureus, or MRSA. A powerful antibiotic first isolated in 1953
from soil collected in the jungles of Borneo, vancomycin works
by inhibiting formation of the S. aureus cell wall so that it
cannot provide structural support and protection. In 2002,
however, a strain of S.