{"id":1829,"date":"2013-07-12T08:59:59","date_gmt":"2013-07-12T07:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/?p=1829"},"modified":"2013-09-15T14:16:44","modified_gmt":"2013-09-15T13:16:44","slug":"a-tail-to-tell-lakey-lab-discovery-could-lead-to-a-new-class-of-antibiotics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/icamblog\/a-tail-to-tell-lakey-lab-discovery-could-lead-to-a-new-class-of-antibiotics\/","title":{"rendered":"A ‘tail’ to tell – Lakey lab discovery could lead to a new class of antibiotics"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Dr Chris Johnson<\/p><\/div>\n

“Most of us know that we should wash our hands after being around animals but do most of us know the reasons why? As a researcher who spends most of his time in the lab killing<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>E. coli<\/a>, using<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>E. coli\u00a0<\/em>specific antibiotics I should be well aware of the dangers of this often underestimated Gram-negative bacteria. However when my youngest daughter contracted<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>E. coli\u00a0<\/em><\/a>O157<\/a> after visiting an agricultural show in Scotland in 2011 (even though we had followed the hand washing procedure), I realised that I did not appreciate how nasty this bacteria can be. Thankfully after 6 weeks in hospital including a lengthy stretch on dialysis my daughter made a full recovery but not everyone is so lucky.”<\/em><\/p>\n

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Professor Jeremy Lakey<\/p><\/div>\n

The urgent need to develop new drugs to target pathogenic bacteria has been a theme of the ICaMB<\/a> blog since its inception in early 2013.\u00a0 However, these words from Dr Chris Johnson, a postdoc in Jeremy Lakey<\/a>\u2019s laboratory, bring home the seriousness of the problem.\u00a0 Fortunately, Chris is in a position to do something about this.<\/p>\n

Many of you will have realised that last week saw another potential breakthrough in ICaMB\u2019s ongoing \u2018War on bacteria<\/a>\u2019 (and here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>).\u00a0\u00a0 This time the PI making the news, with data demonstrating the possibility of a whole new class of antibiotics, was Professor Jeremy Lakey<\/a>.\u00a0 And when we say making the news, we mean that literally. The ITV interview<\/a> of Jeremy and his team can be viewed here<\/p>\n