Antibiotic resistance is a big concern in the medical world at the moment. Due to the profligate use of antibiotics, disease-causing bacteria are becoming more and more resistant to treatment and may soon become altogether untreatable. The "half life" of antibiotics means that we're always having to come up with new ones, but that's easier said than done, as the germs that make you sick don't necessarily do too well in a lab, making them hard to study. Teixobactin is the first new antibiotic to be developed for 30 years and scientists think we will be able to use it to treat infections such as tuberculosis and septicaemia within the next 5 years. This new antibiotic has been developed using an innovative new technique, using an electronic chip to grow microbes in soil in the lab. What's more, it is thought that bacteria will not become resistant to Teixobactin for at least 30 years, which is just as well considering how long it takes to develop them.
