JERUSALEM, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- Israeli biopharmaceutical company Biomica announced on Wednesday that it will collaborate with the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) to develop a selective treatment against antibiotic resistant bacteria.
The drug development will be based on the discoveries of the WIS scientist Ada Yonath, the Israeli 2009 chemistry Nobel Prize winner.
The treatment will selectively target specific "Staphylococcus aureu" bacteria that are resistant to existing antibiotic treatments, while maintaining the environment of the other types of bacteria in the patient's intestine.
Identifying the specific target site for these bacteria, through Yonath's discoveries, will help Biomica to scan, using computational tools, molecules that may bind to that target site, neutralize the protein-producing part of the resistant bacterium and kill it.
This is done without eradicating the patient's microbiome as is currently the case when trying to treat these bacteria with a wide-ranging antibiotic capable of eliminating many types of bacteria.
Biomica, based in the central city of Rehovot, aims to identify and characterize disease-related microbiome entities, and to develop novel therapeutics based on these understandings.
