Cockroaches - The Antibiotics of the Future ???

  Cockroaches , the creepy critters reviled for invading kitchens  the country over , might be modern medicine's best option for fending off dangerous , drug-resistant bacterial infections.  British researchers at The University of Nottingham's School of Veterinary  Medicine  and Science are behind the discovery, which entails harnessing molecues from the tissures  of cockroaches and locusts to combat bacteria like E.coli and MRSA ( drug resistant staph infections). Chemicals found in the brain  and central nervous tissues of cockroaches are able to kill 90 percent of  of dangerous bacteria in lab-based tests.
 "Superbugs ...have shown the ability to cause untreatable infections and have become a major threat  in our fight against bacterial diseases," Dr. Naveed Khan , who supervised the work of lead reseacher Simon Lee, said in a press release. "Thus, there is a continous need to find additional sources of novel anti-micobials to confront this menace." In a twist that's an ironic upside to our own revulsion for roaches, it's their "unsanitary and unhygienic environments," Lee speculated , that spurred the critters to develop toxins against the bacteria.

After this initial success , the same U.K. team is testing the cockroach-derived  toxins against other harmful "superbugs" that are increasingly resistant to existing pharmaceuticals . Indeed , the finding comes as the need for new  anti-microbials is increasing . Health experts  continue to warn that bacterial infections will soon be entirely resistant to current modes of treatment.

"This community, by and large , lacks the resources to move a candidate antimicrobial drug all the way from preclinical testing through advanced development ," Anthony Fauci , director of the National Institute  of Allergy and Infections Diseses , said in April ,"We desperately need to develop new classes of drugs to ensure  that we have viable treatments options."
 Good news... The antibiotics  they  get from the creepy critters may be a cure or a preventative for a whole plethora of viruses and super-bugs. We are keeping our fingers crossed  for the scientists' success.