Drugs that work against each other could fight resistant bacteria

When normal bacteria are exposed to a drug, those that become resistant gain a huge and obvious advantage. Bacteria are notoriously quick to seize upon such evolutionary advantages and resistant strains rapidly outgrow the normal ones. Drug-resistant bacteria pose an enormous potential threat to public health and their numbers are increasing. MRSA for example, has become a bit of a media darling in Britain’s scare-mongering tabloids. More worryingly, researchers have recently discovered a strain of tuberculosis resistant to all the drugs used to treat the disease.