# Scientists Revive a Defeated Antibiotic's Power Against Drug-Resistant Superbugs

*2026-07-23 06:01 UTC · Science · 1 min read*

> Scientists paired the antibiotic vancomycin with a newly discovered molecule that disables a bacterial defense enzyme, restoring its power against drug-resistant superbugs.

Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Scripps Research have restored the effectiveness of vancomycin, one of medicine's last-resort antibiotics, by pairing it with a small molecule called pghi-4. The compound blocks a bacterial enzyme, secreted antigen A (SagA), that vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium relies on to fend off the drug.

In lab tests, adding pghi-4 stripped resistant bacteria of that defense, letting vancomycin kill strains that had previously survived treatment. Pghi-4 was first identified in 2020 from a screen of more than 150 compounds in Professor John Moses' lab at Cold Spring Harbor, working with Professor Howard Hang's team at Scripps.

The approach belongs to a growing category of antibiotic adjuvants: molecules that are not antibiotics themselves but restore the punch of existing drugs. Researchers say the same strategy could eventually help revive treatments for other resistant infections, including drug-resistant tuberculosis, offering a faster route to fighting superbugs than developing entirely new antibiotics from scratch.

## Sources

- [sciencedaily.com](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260722032108.htm)

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TechTools News · https://techtools.cz/tools/news/article/2056-scientists-revive-a-defeated-antibiotic-s-power-against-drug-resistant-superbugs
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