These nanotubes kill bacteria by punching holes in the membrane. Tests carried out in vitro and in vivo demonstrated successful killing of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE), among other bacterial pathogens, within minutes, the authors reported last year in Nature.1
"We saw that nanotubes gave us the opportunity to save many lives, and for a scientist, I think, that's the most gratifying thing that can happen," says lead investigator and chemist, M. Reza Ghadiri. Before this work, scientists recognized the antimicrobial efficacy of natural peptides, but had trouble converting that knowledge into functional therapeutics.
"New antibiotic structures are all too rare," says Tomas Ganz, a professor of medicine at UCLA, in an accompanying commentary.2 But he describes the design and initial testing of these new cyclic peptide antibiotics as "an exciting advance in this quest."
When the peptides enter the charged environment of the bacterial membrane, ...
