Scientists in the US managed to grow the bacteria out of a morass of life cleverly coined 'bacterial dark matter," due to the fact that it was based on a lifeform that can't be cultured in a petri dish.

99% of all bacteria are similarly unculturable and could not be grown in laboratories previously, hence the moniker dark matter, because 95% of the universe is made up of dark matter and dark energy.

The new drug was discovered from bacterial dark matter found in sandy soil from North Carolina, and developed by an international team of researchers alongside the company NovoBiotic in Boston.

"We urgently need new antibiotics to combat bacteria that become increasingly resistant to most clinically used antibiotics," said Dr. Markus Weingarth, a researcher from the chemistry department of Utrecht University.