Research\nteams from the University of Macau (UM) recently developed an eco-friendly\nantibiotic. Currently, antibiotics are being discharged irresponsibly by\npharmaceutical manufacturing plants and hospitals, which has led to the\ndevelopment and spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria. The research study\naims to address this problem by developing a new type of antibiotics. The\nrelated paper has been published in\nChemical Communications<\/i>, a prestigious international journal in the field\npublished by the Royal Society of Chemistry. <\/p>
It has been\nsuggested that irresponsible antibiotics discharge from pharmaceutical\nmanufacturers is one of the main reasons why antibiotic resistant bacteria are\nspreading in many countries. Large quantities of antibiotics have been\ndischarged by manufacturing plants into the environment without further\nprocessing or deactivation. While governments around the world should enforce\ntighter control of manufacturing plants in this respect, scientists from UM\nhave conducted a research study to explore the possibility of stemming\nenvironment pollution once for all through activatable antibiotics. The study\nwas jointly conducted by a research team led by Dr Wang Ruibing from the\nInstitute of Chinese Medical Sciences and another research team led by Dr Zheng\nJun from the Faculty of Health Sciences. Their antibiotic includes an\n\u2018antibiotic precursor\u2019 and an \u2018activator\u2019 . The antibiotic precursor\nitself does not have any antibacterial activity and therefore will not promote\nantibiotic resistance even if discharged into the environment. For this reason,\nthe teams name their antibiotic \u2018eco-friendly antibiotic\u2019. However, the\nantibiotic precursor can be formulated into an active antibiotic with a simple\nmixing procedure either before or during administration.<\/p>