Tiny E. coli factories churn out new antibiotics
Published August 24, 2015 This content is archived.
Futurity reports that a UB research team has manipulated E. coli to produce 40 new versions of the antibiotic erythromycin, including three that show promise in fighting drug-resistant bacteria.
Blaine Pfeifer, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, said, “We’re focused on trying to come up with new antibiotics that can overcome resistance, and we see this as an important step forward.”
The original study entitled "Tailoring pathway modularity in the biosynthesis of erythromycin analogs heterologously engineered in E. coli," by Guojian Zhang, Yi Li, Lei Fang, Blaine A. Pfeifer, was published in Science Advances on May 29, 2015.
