Key to 'superbug' antibiotic resistance
Health Minister Greg Hunt's announcement that the Federal Government will invest $5.9-million from the Medical Research Future Fund to tackle antimicrobial resistance attracted media interest, with press coverage specifically mentioning Monash BDI related research.
Sparking a further 150 pieces of media coverage about the research led by Dr Matthew Belousoff and Professor Trevor Lithgow, including pieces in the Sydney Morning Herald The Herald and on radio 3AW, it is clear there is growing public interest in the emerging threat of antibiotic-resistant' superbugs'.
This followed the initial media interest a week earlier in Dr Belousoff and Professor Lithgow's work which featured in a number of leading online science news publications including Labonline and Medical News Today.
The research, published in the journal mBio, tackles the global health challenge we face today of 'superbugs': bacteria that are resistant to commonly used antibiotics. Dr Belousoff and Professor Lithgow, in collaboration with Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science and the NTU Institute of Structural Biology in Singapore, have discovered the key to 'superbug' antibiotic resistance.