U.K. company develops weapon against hospital 'superbug'

Difficile strikes when antibiotics kill all the 'good bugs' that dwell in your gut--like the ones that aid in digestion--and leave only C. difficile, which then causes severe diarrhea and could lead to colon infections.

Clostridium difficile: Yes, it is just as nasty as it sounds. C. difficile is a "superbug" that is the scourge of hospitals. It strikes when antibiotics kill all the "good bugs" that dwell in your gut--like the ones that aid in digestion--and leave only C. difficile, which then causes severe diarrhea and could lead to colon infections.

Researchers at Summit, a U.K.-based drug discovery company, thinks it's found an answer to C. difficile with a new antibiotic it is developing with help from a Wellcome Trust Seeding Drug Discovery award. According to an article by the Wellcome Trust, Summit's new antibiotic "clears C. difficile and provides total protection from recurrence in an animal model of infection." The compound also leaves the natural populations of bacteria in the gut unharmed, Wellcome says.

William Weiss, director of pre-clinical services at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, who collaborated on the preclinical studies, is ho