simple health 22

Previous research has shown that pairing antibiotics can be more effective than using single drugs, but finding these perfect matches has proven elusive. Researchers at University of Utah Health have developed a rapid screening method to identify beneficial pairs of existing FDA-approved drugs to combat multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacterial infections. The results are published online in  PLoS Biology . "By pairing FDA-approved drugs synergistically, we have the potential to take these pairs to clinic much more quickly than new drugs, which can be expensive and time intensive to create and approve," Jessica Brown, Ph.D., assistant professor in pathology at U of U Health. Brown and her team analyzed a bacterial dataset consisting of 4,000  E. coli  mutants grown in the presence of 100 FDA-approved drugs. Each mutant is missing a specific gene and interacts with each drug in a specific way, producing a unique chemical genetic signature. Brown poured through the chemi...