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New Studies Recast Superbug Strategy With Targeted Cefiderocol Use and a Potent Rediscovered Antibiotic Lead

The latest research shifts care toward precision prescribing and underscores that promising antibiotic candidates remain far from the clinic.

Overview

  • A Rosario-led team published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases clarified how certain metallo‑beta‑lactamase–producing pathogens evade cefiderocol, explaining uneven clinical results.
  • The findings, presented at an infectious‑disease congress in Atlanta, are prompting hospitals in multiple countries to reassess cefiderocol use using precision diagnostic workflows.
  • Researchers report cefiderocol can work against some MBLs but not others, reinforcing highly personalized indications for select critical infections, and the drug is not yet available in Argentina.
  • In separate work, University of Warwick and Monash scientists identified a biosynthetic intermediate, pre‑methylenomycin C lactone, with over 100‑fold greater in vitro activity against resistant Gram‑positive bacteria and no resistance observed in early tests.
  • Turning these advances into treatments will require toxicity and animal studies, scalable manufacturing, clinical trials, and solutions to weak commercial incentives for new antibiotics.