Wayne State Testing Drug to Fight ‘Superbugs’
Wayne State researchers will analyze how to use a powerful drug to fight “superbug” infections that resist treatment.
Researchers at Wayne State University have a new task. They must determine how best to use a powerful antibiotic to treat infections that resist almost all other drugs.
It’s something health care workers have long feared, the so-called “superbug” that cannot be treated by any known drug.
Scientists say that scenario is increasingly possible because antibiotics are used so commonly now that many bacterial infections are becoming resistant to them.
Enter polymyxin B, a drug so powerful it is only used as a last resort for the most critically ill patients.
Experts say the drug is used so relatively rarely that bacteria have not really become resistant to it.
Wayne State researchers will develop guidelines for how to safely treat patients with it, without bacteria growing resistant to it.
The five-year study is being paid for by a nearly $5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.
