overcome resistance tagged posts

Scientists have repurposed the gene-editing tool CRISPR to study which genes are targeted by particular antibiotics, providing clues on how to improve existing antibiotics or develop new ones. Resistance to current antibiotics by disease-causing pathogens is a growing problem, one estimated to endanger millions of lives and cost over $2 billion each year in the U.S. “What we need to do is to figure out new weaknesses in these bacteria,” says Jason Peters, a UW-Madison professor of pharmaceutical sciences, who developed the new system.

The technique, known as Mobile-CRISPRi, allows scientists to screen for antibiotic function in a wide range of pathogenic bacteria...