UCLA researchers discover effective new antibiotic combinations

UCLA biologists have discovered thousands of four- and five-drug combinations of antibiotics that are more effective at killing harmful bacteria than smaller drug combinations. This discovery challenges the prevailing theory that combining three or more drugs results in diminishing returns or adverse drug interactions when combating harmful bacteria. 

Their findings, supported in part by UCLA CTSI, are reported in the journal npj Systems Biology and Applications and could be a major step toward protecting public health at a time when pathogens and common infections are increasingly becoming resistant to antibiotics. Pamela Yeh, one of the study's senior authors, is a CTSI KL2 Scholar and assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA, and is quoted in the UCLA press release.

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Image caption: Pamela Yeh (UCLA)

Image source: UCLA Health