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Staphylococcus aureus has developed resistance to many antibiotics. Moreover, sometimes S. aureus infections respond poorly even when the bacteria are sensitive to the antibiotics used. A team of industry-backed investigators speculated that this latter problem was caused by bacterial invasion of cells, which allowed the bacteria to evade circulating antibiotics.
The researchers created a rifampicin-derived antibiotic attached to an antibody that binds to the surface sugars of S. aureus. When bacteria that are coated with this novel molecule are ingested by cells, intracellular chemicals activate the antibiotic and kill the intracellular bacteria. In mice, a single injection of this novel molecule was dramatically more successful than treatm…