Now an international team of researchers has, for the first time, successfully synthesized the compound and used it to treat a bacterial infection in mice. This is an important milestone in the quest to develop a new antibiotic in the war against antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

"When teixobactin was discovered it was groundbreaking in itself as a new antibiotic which kills bacteria without detectable resistance including superbugs such as MRSA, but natural teixobactin was not created for human use," explains Ishwar Singh, one of the scientists involved in the new research.

Late last year, a University of Lincoln team revealed it had successfully developed a synthesized version of teixobactin, with an easier synthesis process speeding up a single coupling step from 30 hours to just 10 minutes. At the time, the potency of the new synthesized drug was only demonstrated in vitro.