SM Najmus Sakib
31 May 2021•Update: 31 May 2021
DHAKA, Bangladesh
A team of Bangladeshi scientists and researchers have discovered a new antibiotic from rare bacteria found on jute seed that can fight bacterial infections and drug-resistant bacterial diseases.
The discovery of the antibiotics from the bacteria called ‘Staphylococcus hominis’ has already been recognized in a peer-reviewed journal Nature Research, titled “A plant endophyte staphylococcus hominis strain MBL_AB63 produces a novel lantibiotic, homicorcin and a position one variant.”
A research team member Prof. Mohammad Riazul Islam of Dhaka University told Anadolu Agency, “It’s a peptide antibiotic that works against drug registrant. We can get good antibiotics if we can make them available on the market for commercial production.”
"There is a funding crisis in scientific research, including in the country we face. And we need to produce a huge amount of the antibiotic to take the discovery and research further ahead," he added.
“And, we need research funds and the government patronization to make this happen. As before the commercial production, [we] will have more work on this including pre-clinical research and human clinical trials,” he said.
It is a natural product and they did not modify the bacteria in the lab and it has as many as five variants. And if there is a lack of local funding, the global funding can take the discovery away, he added.
Islam, a professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology has been conducting the research at the university lab for almost three years.
The genome sequencing of this bacteria revealed that it contains a gene that produces antibiotics, which had not before been reported. It can be utilized to treat a variety of bacterium-borne diseases.
Researchers from the Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research were also aligned in the research.
Many antibiotics used in medical science have lost their resistance to germs, and even in hospitals, patients are being infected with some bacteria known as superbugs that are not being treated with any conventional antibiotics.
This new antibiotic can be successful in treating those infections against those superbugs, said the scientist.
“Due to the increasing number of antibiotic resistance cases, the world is in urgent need of novel compounds and innovative methods to minimize the spread and development of drug-resistant infection,” the Nature journal read.
Currently, among the Staphylococcus aureus strains isolated in the hospitals, 60–70% are found to be multidrug-resistant. Therefore, new antimicrobial drugs not affected by existing resistance mechanisms are needed to prevent the potential epidemic outbreaks of infectious diseases, it added.
