Our latest weapon in the battle against superbugs comes from … giant pandas? Apparently. Scientists have discovered a potent antibiotic called cathelicidin-AM in the animal’s blood. It’s released by immune cells there, and Chinese researchers now think it could be used to develop treatments for human diseases—including drug-resistant superbugs. Among their proof: Cathelicidin-AM took less than an hour to kill bacteria that other, more well-known antibiotics took more than six hours to destroy. The lead researcher of the substance explains, “It showed potential antimicrobial activities against a wide spectrum of microorganisms including bacteria and fungi, both standard and drug-resistant strains”. Of course, there are just 1,600 giant pandas in the wild, and they’re well known for being poor breeders. But we may not be forced to harvest the compound from natural sources: Scientists have been able to decode the genes and produce an artificial version of the antibiotic in a lab setting, the Telegraph reports.
