Inducing Antibiotic Production

The microbes that cause disease are gaining resistance to the antibiotics we are using to treat them (think MRSA: methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). At the same time, it's becoming increasingly difficult to find new antibiotics that work against these now-resistant bacteria. But classical techniques for antibiotic discovery may be ignoring an important piece of information.

In the environment, microbes make antibiotics naturally. One species of microbes will carve out a niche for itself by producing antibiotics to kill off other species of microbes. In other words, microbes are engaging in warfare with one another in nature. In my research, I took advantage of this fact to get microbes to make antibiotics when exposed to other species that they wouldn't have otherwise made in isolation. In other words, I induce microbes to wield their weapons (antibiotics useful to humans) by exposing them to their microbial rivals: a competing species of bacteria.