A new web-based tool allowing rapid in silico prediction of the ability of candidate antibiotics to accumulate in Gram-negative bacteria should enable subsequent prioritization of new compounds for synthesis and further evaluation, U.S. researchers reported Nov. 18, 2019, in Nature Microbiology.

MELBOURNE, Australia – Researchers at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne are pushing the boundaries on creating kidney tissue from stem cells. For more than two decades, Melissa Little and her team at Murdoch have investigated the molecular and cell development basis of kidney disease and the potential for regeneration. The team has developed approaches for directing the differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells to human kidney organoids and is applying that knowledge to disease modeling, drug screening, cell therapy and tissue engineering.

One necessary step to fend off a dystopian future of medical care without antibiotics is the development of new antibiotics. Another is improved deployment of existing ones, a feat which will take, among other things, better antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST). “I’m astounded that we can get men to the moon, and we are using practices [dating] almost back to the age of Robert Koch to identify bacteria,” Deborah Hung told BioWorld MedTech. “The standard practice takes amazingly long.”