The World Health Organization says antibiotic resistance is rising to high level in all parts of the world. It’s something that researchers at the University of Guelph are working on, and have utilized the Canadian Light Source Synchrotron in their work.

Dr. Rod Merrill says many of the bacterial pathogens that cause disease have become resistant to antibiotics, so new strategies are needed. He describes these bacteria as similar to soldiers with weapons who are at war, and what they want to do is disarm these weapons. They used the CLS to solve the 3-D structure of the toxin the bacteria produces.

Dr. Merrill says then they can find and design small molecules to block them, therefore disarming them. The scientists have found a number of natural compounds that work to de-activate the weaponry, but the work is still in the beginning stages. The next step, Merrill says, is to see if it works in live cell systems, but they are a long way from testing in animals and humans.