Silkworms versus superbugs

Strains of potentially lethal bacteria that are resistant to common antibiotics have appeared in hospitals across the globe in recent decades. The infamous MRSA - methicillin, or multidrug, resistant Staphylococcus aureus - is responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections in humans and is not killed by penicillin or cephalosporin antibiotics. As such, drug researchers are constantly searching for novel chemical structures that can attack MRSA. Recently, a team at Kitasato University in Tokyo, Japan, have used an intriguing method to find such compounds.