Antibiotics play a major role in the medical field in order to eliminate the pathogens. Nowadays, the overutilization of antibiotics seems to be an upcoming disaster which not only leads to pollution via pharmaceutical wastes, but it had also increased the risk of antibiotic resistance.

It was already discovered that few antibiotic-resistant bacteria could able to eliminate the antibiotics which were meant to kill them. But the mechanism behind this action was not understood.

Recently, the research team led by Dr. Gautam Dantas, an Associate Professor of Pathology and Immunology, Molecular Microbiology and Biomedical Engineering from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis had revealed few key points by studying four distantly related species of soil bacteria which readily lived on a diet of penicillin.

Specific genes were expressed when the engineered bacteria named Escherichia coli were fed on the antibiotic (penicillin), which neutralize the toxic capacity of the penicillin and digest the remainder of the molecule.

Dr. Gautam Dantas said, “Ten years ago we stumbled onto the fact that bacteria can eat antibiotics...Now that we understand how these bacteria do it, we can start thinking of ways to use this ability to get rid of antibiotics where they are causing harm."