New weapon in germ warfare: 'Jamming' bacteria signals stops cholera
Public release date: 7-Dec-2004
A new treatment for the age-old scourge of cholera and perhaps a whole new type of antibiotic medicine may emerge from chemicals discovered in an Australian seaweed, new research results suggest.
Researchers at the University of New South Wales have found that compounds known as furanones – isolated from the seaweed Delisea pulchra – can prevent the bacteria that cause cholera from switching on their disease-causing mechanisms.