Insight: The hunt for new antibiotics
Issue #39; Summer 2026
This image is a collation of bioactivity screens carried out by Dr Katie Noble in the Hutchings Lab while testing the antimicrobial production of different Streptomyces bacteria against pathogens like MRSA, E. coli and Candida albicans.
Streptomyces bacteria make nearly two thirds of the antibiotics currently used in a clinical setting, but they have the capacity to produce even more. Researchers like Katie, who has now joined the Quadram Institute as a postdoctoral researcher investigating antibiotics against Salmonella, are working to unlock this potential. Each of the strains in these images has been genetically edited to reprogramme the regulation of antibiotic production, in the hope of switching on new pathways and producing new antimicrobials.
Each zone of inhibition, the circle that appears around the bacteria in the middle of the plate, represents a promising lead for a new antibiotic with novel biology and chemistry to be uncovered.
