Antibiotics against anthrax attack the bacteria, not the deadly toxins that the bacteria secrete. If a patient does not receive antibiotics in the infection's early stage, he or she can die from accumulated toxin. But if antitoxin drugs were developed, they could be administered at this later stage of illness, and they could save lives.1
For years, scientists have been quietly working behind the scenes, trying to understand how anthrax toxins can penetrate the hydrophobic layers. While researchers do not have all the answers, they do have some workable theories. John Collier, a researcher at Harvard Medical School, and his colleagues started investigating anthrax toxin inhibitors as a way "to help us dissect out its fundamental mechanism and mode of action," he says. Though Collier's original ambitions were purely scientific, "when something becomes obvious, when you come across a finding that has practical uses, certainly we follow that line of ...
