⚡Researchers resurrected ancient proteins from 160-million-year-old organisms and found they are effective against antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

What it means

Researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute have resurrected antimicrobial peptides (short proteins) from the genomes of mammals that lived up to 160 million years ago, using computational ancestral sequence reconstruction. In lab tests, some of these ancient peptides proved potent against modern antibiotic-resistant 'superbugs' like MRSA and E. coli, suggesting evolutionarily distant molecules could inspire a new class of antibiotics. The work is published in the journal *Cell Systems* and represents a proof-of-concept that 'de-extinct' proteins can expand the dwindling pipeline of novel antimicrobials.

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