King's College London develops ERB antibiotics

Researchers at King s College London, led by Professor Khondaker Miraz Rahman and in collaboration with Professor Mark Sutton from the United Kingdom — UK Health Security Agency, have developed a new approach called 'Efflux Resistance Breaker' (ERB) for designing antibiotics. This method chemically redesigns antibiotics to prevent bacteria from pumping them out of cells, thereby restoring their effectiveness against drug-resistant infections. The study, published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, provides a proof of concept for building resistance-breaking properties directly into antibiotic molecules. This innovation aims to discover new treatments and revive existing antibiotics that have lost efficacy due to bacterial evolution, addressing the critical global threat of antimicrobial resistance highlighted by the World Health Organization.