UK and four nations sanction two far-right Israeli ministers


By AFP

June 10, 2025


The five countries accused Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of inciting 'extremist violence' - Copyright AFP AHMAD GHARABLI

Peter HUTCHISON

Britain and four allies joined forces Tuesday to sanction two Israeli ministers for “repeated incitements of violence” against Palestinians, upping their condemnation of Israel’s actions around the war in Gaza.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir will be banned from entering the UK and will have any assets in the country frozen, Britain’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The announcement was a rare joint action alongside Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway and comes as the Israeli government faces growing international criticism over its conduct of the conflict with Hamas.

The sanction sees the five countries break from Israel’s closest ally, the United States.

Ben Gvir and Smotrich “have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights”, the foreign ministers of the five countries said in a joint statement.

“These actions are not acceptable. This is why we have taken action now –- to hold those responsible to account,” they added.

Smotrich and Ben Gvir are part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fragile ruling coalition.

Both have drawn criticism for their hard-line stance on the war in Gaza and comments about settlements in the occupied West Bank, the other Palestinian territory.

Smotrich, who lives in a West Bank settlement, has supported the expansion of settlements and has increasingly called for the territory’s annexation.

Last month, he said Gaza would be “entirely destroyed” and that civilians would “start to leave in great numbers to third countries”.

Ben Gvir has also called for Gazans to be resettled from the besieged territory.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the pair have used “horrendous extremist language” and that he would “encourage the Israeli government to disavow and condemn that language”.

Earlier, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel had been informed by Britain of its sanctions decision, describing the move as “outrageous”.

The UK foreign ministry said in its statement that “extremist settlers have carried out over 1,900 attacks against Palestinian civilians since January last year”.

– ‘Personal capacity’ –



It said the five countries were “clear that the rising violence and intimidation by Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities in the West Bank must stop”.

“Measures today cannot be seen in isolation from events in Gaza where Israel must uphold international humanitarian law,” the foreign ministry said.

It added that the UK and its partners “support Israel’s security and will continue to work with the Israeli government to strive to achieve an immediate ceasefire in Gaza”.

“Hamas must release the hostages immediately, and there must be a path to a two-state solution with Hamas having no role in future governance,” it added.

The action comes after the British government suspended free-trade negotiations with Israel last month and summoned its ambassador over the conduct of the war.

It also announced financial restrictions and travel bans on several prominent settlers, as well as two illegal outposts and two organisations accused of backing violence against Palestinian communities.

Uber to launch driverless taxis in London next year


By AFP
June 10, 2025


Robotaxis are already making forays in some other cities around the world, for instance in Wuhan, China, where tech giant Baidu's Apollo Go self-driving project is operational - Copyright AFP JESSICA YANG

Ride-hailing firm Uber will launch self-driving taxis in London next year when England trials new driverless services, the firm and the UK government said on Tuesday.

Under the Uber pilot scheme, services will initially have a human in the driver’s seat who can take control of the vehicle in an emergency, but the trials will eventually transition to being fully driverless.

The government announcement will see companies including Uber allowed to trial commercial driverless services without a human presence for the first time in the UK.

They will include taxis and “bus-like” services.

Uber CEO Andrew Macdonald described London’s roads as “one of the world’s busiest and most complex urban environments”.

“Our vision is to make autonomy a safe and reliable option for riders everywhere, and this trial in London brings that future closer to reality,” he said.

Members of the public will be able to book the transport via an app from spring 2026, ahead of a potential wider rollout when new legislation — the Automated Vehicles Act — becomes law from the second half of 2027, the Department for Transport added.

The technology could create 38,000 jobs, add £42 billion ($57 billion) to the UK economy by 2025, and make roads safer, it said.

“The future of transport is arriving. Self-driving cars could bring jobs, investment, and the opportunity for the UK to be among the world-leaders in new technology,” Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said.

“We can’t afford to take a back seat on AI…. That’s why we’re bringing timelines forward today,” added Technology Secretary Peter Kyle.

The wider rollout will also allow the sale and use of self-driving, private cars.

Driverless vehicle trials have been underway in the UK since January 2015, with British companies Wayve and Oxa “spearheading significant breakthroughs in the technology”, the ministry said.

“These early pilots will help build public trust and unlock new jobs, services, and markets,” said Wayve CEO Alex Kendall.

According to the government the forthcoming legislation will require self-driving vehicles to “achieve a level of safety at least as high as competent and careful human drivers”.

“By having faster reaction times than humans, and by being trained on large numbers of driving scenarios, including learning from real-world incidents, self-driving vehicles can help reduce deaths and injuries,” it said.

Driverless taxis with limited capacity are already on the roads in the United States and China, most notably in the central Chinese city of Wuhan where a fleet of over 500 can be hailed by app in designated areas.

Huawei founder says chips still lag ‘one generation’ behind US

China has accused the United States of “bullying” 

By AFP
June 10, 2025


Image: — © AFP/File

Chinese tech giant Huawei’s chips still “lag behind the United States by one generation,” state media quoted its founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei as saying in a rare interview on Tuesday.

Washington last month unveiled fresh guidelines warning firms that using Chinese-made high-tech AI semiconductors, specifically Huawei’s Ascend chips, would put them at risk of violating US export controls.

The Shenzhen-based company has been at the centre of an intense standoff between the economic supergiants after Washington warned its equipment could be used for espionage by Beijing, an allegation Huawei denies.

Speaking to the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, 80-year-old Ren insisted the United States had “exaggerated” Huawei’s achievements.

Tougher controls in recent years have prevented US chip giant Nvidia, one of Huawei’s rivals, from selling certain AI semiconductors — widely regarded as the most advanced in the world — to Chinese firms.

As a result, it is now facing tougher competition from local players in the crucial market, including Huawei.

Nvidia’s chief executive Jensen Huang told reporters last month that Chinese companies “are very, very talented and very determined, and the export control gave them the spirit, the energy and the government support to accelerate their development.”

But Ren said Huawei was “not that great yet”, according to the article published on the newspaper’s front page Tuesday.

“Many companies in China are making chips, and quite a few are doing well — Huawei is just one of them,” he added.

When asked about “external blockades and suppression” — a veiled reference to US export restrictions on Beijing — Ren said he had “never thought about it.”

“Don’t dwell on the difficulties, just get the job done and move forward step by step,” he added.


Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said the US had ‘exaggerated’ Huawei’s achievements – Copyright AFP JESSICA YANG

Sanctions since 2019 have curtailed the firm’s access to US-made components and technologies, forcing it to diversify its growth strategy.

China has accused the United States of “bullying” and “abusing export controls to suppress and contain” the country’s firms.

 

Study provides evidence pigs were domesticated from wild boars in South China

Microfossils on 8,000-year-old pig teeth show pigs ate human foods and waste.

Dartmouth College

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Body proportion transformation from wild boar to domestic pig.

view more 

Credit: Artwork by Jiajing Wang.

Pigs have long been known, sometimes celebrated, as among the most intelligent of farm animals. Now, a new Dartmouth-led study provides evidence that pigs were first domesticated from wild boars in South China approximately 8,000 years ago.

China has long been considered one of the locations for original pig domestication but tracking the initial process has always been challenging. The study is the first to find that pigs were eating humans' cooked foods and waste. The results are reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Domestication of some animals, including pigs, has often been associated with the Neolithic period when humans began their transition from foraging to farming around 10,000 years ago.

Wild boars are large, aggressive beasts that live independently, many in the forest, rooting for food from the undergrowth. They have larger heads and mouths, and bigger teeth than domestic pigs.

"While most wild boars are naturally aggressive, some are more friendly and less afraid of people, which are the ones that may live alongside humans," says lead author Jiajing Wang, an assistant professor of anthropology at Dartmouth. "Living with humans gave them easy access to food, so they no longer needed to maintain their robust physiques."

"Over time, their bodies became smaller, and their brains also became smaller by about one-third," says Wang.

To study the domestication of pigs and other animals, archaeologists have often relied on examining the sizes and shapes of skeletal structures to mark the morphological change over time.

"But this method can be problematic because the reduction in body size likely occurred later in the domestication process,” says Wang. “What probably came first were behavioral changes, like becoming less aggressive and more tolerant of humans,” says Wang.

So, for the study, the researchers used a different method and documented what the pigs had been eating over their lifespan using the molar teeth of 32 pig specimens. Through a microfossil analysis of the pig teeth, they examined the mineralized plaque, known as dental calculus, from two of the earliest sites where humans lived, at least 8,000 years ago at Jingtoushan and Kuahuqiao in the Lower Yangtze River region of South China.

The sites were waterlogged, which helped preserve the organic materials.

The analysis found a total of 240 starch granules present. It revealed that pigs had eaten cooked foods—rice and yams—as well as an unidentified tuber, acorns, and wild grasses. "These are plants that were present in the environment at that time and were found in human settlements," says Wang.

Prior research has found rice at both sites with intensive rice cultivation at Kuahuqiao, which is located farther inland and has greater access to freshwater than coastal-based Jingtoushan. Other studies have also shown starch residues in grinding stones and pottery from Kuahuqiao.

"We can assume that pigs do not cook food for themselves, so they were probably getting the food from humans either by being fed by them and/or scavenging human food," says Wang.

Human parasite eggs, specifically, that of whipworm, aka Trichuris —a parasite egg that can mature inside human digestive systems—were also found in the pig dental calculus. These yellow-brown football-shaped parasite eggs were found in 16 of the pig teeth specimens. The pigs must have been eating human feces or drinking water or eating food for which the dirt was contaminated by such feces, according to the study.

"Pigs are known for their habit of eating human waste, so that is additional evidence that these pigs were probably living with humans or having a very close relationship with them," says Wang.

The researchers also conducted a statistical analysis of the dental structures of the Kuahuqiao and Jingtoushan pig specimens, showing that some had small teeth similar to those of modern domestic populations in China.

"Wild boars were probably attracted to human settlements as people started settling down and began growing their own food," says Wang. "These settlements created a large amount of waste, and that waste attracts scavengers for food, which in turn fosters selection mechanisms that favored animals willing to live alongside humans."

In animal domestication, this process is called a "commensal pathway," where the animal is attracted to human settlements rather than the humans trying to actively recruit the animals.

The data also supports that early interaction also involved domestic pigs under active human management, representing a "prey pathway" in the domestication process.

"Our study shows that some wild boars took the first step towards domestication by scavenging human waste," says Wang.

The research also sheds light on the likely relationship between pig domestication and the transmission of parasitic diseases in early sedentary communities.

Yiyi Tang, Guarini, a graduate student in Wang's lab; Yunfei Zheng, Leping Jiang, and Guoping Sun at the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology; Xiaolin Ma at Henan Museum; and Yanfeng Hou at Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology also contributed to the study.

Wang is available for comment at: Jiajing.Wang@dartmouth.edu.

Examples of pig molar teeth specimens analyzed for the study.

Trichuris (whipworm) egg from pig dental calculus.

Credit

Image by Jiajing Wang.

---

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2507123122 

Article Title

Early evidence for pig domestication (8,000 cal. BP) in the Lower Yangtze, South China

'CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT'

Why don’t bats get cancer? Researchers discover protection from genes and strong immune systems

UR scientists studying longevity are seeking to apply their findings to humans

University of Rochester Medical Center

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

A study to look at why long-lived bats do not get cancer has broken new ground about the biological defenses that resist the disease.

Reported in the journal Nature Communications, a University of Rochester research team found that four common species of bats have superpowers allowing them to live up to 35 years, which is equal to about 180 human years, without cancer.

Vera Gorbunova, PhD, and Andrei Seluanov, PhD, members of the UR Department of Biology and Wilmot Cancer Institute, led the work. Their key discoveries on how bats prevent cancer:

• Bats and humans have a gene called p53, a tumor-suppressor that can shut down cancer. (Mutations in p53, limiting its ability act properly, occur in about half of all human cancers.) A species known as the “little brown” bat—found in Rochester and upstate New York—contain two copies of p53 and have elevated p53 activity compared to humans. High levels of p53 in the body can kill cancer cells before they become harmful in a process known as apoptosis. If levels of p53 are too high, however, this is bad because it eliminates too many cells. But bats have an enhanced system that balances apoptosis effectively.

 

• An enzyme, telomerase, is inherently active in bats, which allows their cells to proliferate indefinitely. This is an advantage in aging because it supports tissue regeneration during aging and injury. If cells divide uncontrollably, though, the higher p53 activity in bats compensates and can remove cancerous cells that may arise.

 

• Bats have an extremely efficient immune system, knocking out multiple deadly pathogens. This also contributes to bats’ anti-cancer abilities by recognizing and wiping out cancer cells, Gorbunova said. As humans age, the immune system slows, and people tend to get more inflammation (in joints and other organs), but bats are good at controlling inflammation, too. This intricate system allows them to stave off viruses and age-related diseases.

How Does Bat Research Apply to Humans?

Cancer is a multistage process and requires many “hits” as normal cells transform into malignant cells. Thus, the longer a person or animal lives, the more likely cell mutations occur in combination with external factors (exposures to pollution and poor lifestyle habits, for instance) to promote cancer.

One surprising thing about the bat study, the researchers said, is that bats do not have a natural barrier to cancer. Their cells can transform into cancer with only two “hits”—and yet because bats possess the other robust tumor-suppressor mechanisms, described above, they survive.

Importantly, the authors said, they confirmed that increased activity of the p53 gene is a good defense against cancer by eliminating cancer or slowing its growth. Several anti-cancer drugs already target p53 activity and more are being studied.

Safely increasing the telomerase enzyme might also be a way to apply their findings to humans with cancer, Seluanov added, but this was not part of the current study.

Gorbunova is the Doris Johns Cherry professor of Biology and Medicine, and leads the Rochester Aging Research Center at the UR Medical Center. Seluanov, is a Dean’s professor of Biology and Medicine, and co-leaders the Aging Center. Together, they have built outstanding careers studying the characteristics of long-lived mammals such as naked mole rats and bowhead whales that age well and resist serious diseases.

They also study long-lived humans in collaboration with other institutions, investigating cohorts of people with exceptional longevity to discover which genes and epigenetic factors are overrepresented in these individuals.

The National Institute on Aging supported the research.

---

Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-59403-z 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Limited cell-autonomous anticancer mechanisms in long-lived bats

COI Statement

L.W. and E.C.T. serve on the scientific advisory board of Paratus Sciences, a company developing the tools and methods necessary to understand bat biology and apply these insights to develop new therapies. Other authors declare no competing interests.

BE AFRAID, VERY AFRAID

RFK Jr ousts entire US vaccine panel over alleged conflicts

By AFP
June 9, 2025

US President Donald Trump speaks as US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (C), and US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon look on during a MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) Commission Event - Copyright AFP RINGO CHIU
Issam AHMED

US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday announced he was dismissing all current members of a key federal vaccine advisory panel, accusing them of conflicts of interest — his latest salvo against the nation’s immunization policies.

The removal of all 17 experts of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) was revealed in a Wall Street Journal op-ed and an official press release.

Kennedy, who has spent two decades promoting vaccine misinformation, cast the move as essential to restoring public trust, claiming the committee had been compromised by financial ties to pharmaceutical companies.

“Today we are prioritizing the restoration of public trust above any specific pro- or anti-vaccine agenda,” he said in a statement from the Department of Health and Human Services.

“The public must know that unbiased science — evaluated through a transparent process and insulated from conflicts of interest — guides the recommendations of our health agencies.”

In his op-ed, Kennedy claimed the panel was “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest” and had become “little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine.”

He added that new members were being considered to replace those ousted — all of whom were appointed under former president Joe Biden.

ACIP members are chosen for their recognized expertise and are required to disclose potential conflicts of interest.

“RFK Jr. and the Trump administration are taking a wrecking ball to the programs that keep Americans safe and healthy,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in response.

“Of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion,” Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a medical doctor who expressed concern about Kennedy’s track record during his Senate nomination but ultimately voted in his favor, wrote on X.

“I’ve just spoken with Secretary Kennedy, and I’ll continue to talk with him to ensure this is not the case.”

– ‘Silencing expertise’ –

The decision drew sharp criticism from Paul Offit, a pediatrician and leading expert on virology and immunology who served on the panel from 1998 to 2003.

“He believes that anybody who speaks well of vaccines, or recommends vaccines, must be deeply in the pocket of industry,” Offit told AFP. “He’s fixing a problem that doesn’t exist.”

“We are witnessing an escalating effort by the Administration to silence independent medical expertise and stoke distrust in lifesaving vaccines,” added Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, in a statement.

Once a celebrated environmental lawyer, Kennedy pivoted from the mid-2000s to public health — chairing a nonprofit that discouraged routine childhood immunizations and amplified false claims, including the long-debunked theory that the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine causes autism.

Since taking office, he has curtailed access to Covid-19 shots and continued to raise fears around the MMR vaccine — even as the United States faces its worst measles outbreak in years, with three reported deaths and more than 1,100 confirmed cases.

Experts warn the true case count is likely far higher.

“How can this country have confidence that the people RFK Jr. wants on the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices are people we can trust?” Offit asked.

He recalled that during US President Donald Trump’s first term, several states formed independent vaccine advisory panels after the administration pressured federal health agencies to prematurely approve Covid-19 vaccines ahead of the 2020 election.

That kind of fragmentation, Offit warned, could happen again.

ACIP is scheduled to hold its next meeting at the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta from June 25 to June 27.

Vaccines for anthrax, Covid-19, human papillomavirus, influenza, Lyme disease, respiratory syncytial virus, and more are on the agenda

RFK Jr.’s dismissal of CDC vaccine advisory panel: Medical experts weigh in


By Dr. Tim Sandle
DIGITAL JOURNAL
June 10, 2025


Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic said last week that it was ready to supply up to 10 million doses of its vaccine targeting mpox by the end of 2025 - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP Ian Willms

Science and medicine have taken a backward step in the U.S. following Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Monday dismissing all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent vaccine advisory committee, saying a “clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science.”

The danger is that Kennedy’s changes could “significantly alter — or even drop — the recommendations” for childhood vaccines and other immunizations.

“Today we are prioritizing the restoration of public trust above any specific pro- or anti-vaccine agenda,” Kennedy, who has a history of controversial views on vaccines, said on June 9 in announcing the overhaul. “The public must know that unbiased science – evaluated through a transparent process and insulated from conflicts of interest – guides the recommendations of our health agencies.”

In response, University of Michigan experts have weighed in on the decision by Kennedy to remove all members of the CDC’s 61-year-old Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Loss of independence

Abram Wagner, assistant professor of epidemiology and global public health at the School of Public Health, investigates vaccination programs is concerned about the loss of independence:

“For decades, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has served as an independent, evidence-based body guiding U.S. vaccine policy to protect children, the elderly and people with serious chronic diseases,” he said. “Vaccines have historically transcended political divisions because of their cost-effectiveness and lifesaving impact. Undermining ACIP not only politicizes public health but also erodes the institutional expertise that has safeguarded generations of Americans.”

Emily Martin, associate professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health, co-directs the Michigan Center for Respiratory Virus Research and Response and the Michigan Public Health Integrated Center for Outbreak Analytics and Modeling thinks that finding suitable replacements will be challenging:

“Secretary Kennedy’s comments greatly underestimate the amount of skill, training and highly specialized knowledge in vaccinology and epidemiology that is required to be a member of ACIP,” she said. “The members of the disbanded committee were among the top experts in the field and brought decades of experience in caring for children, young adults, older adults, patients with cancer and pregnancies, among much else.”

Martin implored action from Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, who chairs the committee that oversees HHS and who voted to confirm Kennedy as secretary based on the promise that ACIP would be left intact and access to vaccines protected.

“(Cassidy) more than anyone should recognize the enormous challenge in reinstating this committee with new experts that are as qualified, and the damage to the nation’s public health that will result from the disruption to their work,” she said. “To do this now, when we are facing measles outbreaks at a level not seen in decades, is extremely concerning.

Factually incorrect

Martin is also concerned with the scientific accuracy (or inaccuracy) of Kennedy’s pronouncement: “The statements surrounding the HHS decision to remove the ACIP committee meetings contain a number of things that are factually incorrect. The meetings are posted online and anyone can listen to the discussions, held livestreamed in public view, where members openly debate all aspects of these vaccines. The care and rigor of these discussions and the reliance on scientific evidence is what has made the ACIP such a respected advisory body internationally. I am disheartened to see the work of the thousands of scientists that contribute to the evidence behind the recommendations disparaged in this way.”

Confusion ahead

Adam Lauring is professor and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Medical School. Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, he is concerned about public mistrust and confusion:

“This move is something that will undoubtedly cause confusion and will ultimately be detrimental to public health,” he said. “The individuals who have served on ACIP are true experts in their field. They volunteer many hours to exhaustively review the available data and debate their recommendations.

“Contrary to Secretary Kennedy’s statements, rigorous conflict of interest rules have been applied to members. Physicians, pharmacists and other providers depend on the ACIP and its integrity for recommendations about how to best care for their patients. As insurers rely on ACIP recommendations to decide which vaccines will be covered, I am concerned that these changes may reduce access to vaccines across the board.”

OPPOSITION TO KENNEDY HHS PURGE

SHEA affirms trust in ACIP and supports science-based vaccine policy

Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America

Facebook

X
BlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology (SHEA) appreciates HHS’s focus on restoring public trust in vaccines and applaud any and all efforts to increase vaccine uptake in the United States to protect public health. 

However, we do not believe recent Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) members were conflicted; rather, we have consistently observed through both our role as an advisory member of ACIP and as a professional medical society, that the committee’s recommendations were rooted in rigorous, evidence-based deliberations. 

SHEA has confidence in the integrity of ACIP’s conflict of interest policies and processes, which are designed to ensure transparency and uphold public trust in its decision-making. 

The ACIP has long served as a trusted body guiding national immunization policy. We are proud to have worked alongside them in advancing public health and encouraging a transparent and deliberative process of vaccination recommendations. 

We are deeply concerned that efforts to restructure or replace ACIP risk undermining a trusted, science-driven process that has long guided national immunization policy. 

We urge HHS to prioritize transparency, scientific rigor, and public health expertise as it considers these changes—and we remain committed to defending a strong, evidence-based immunization framework in the United States.

 

A repurposed FDA-approved drug shows promise in killing antibiotic resistant bacteria

Emory Health Sciences

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

A new study from Emory University addresses the growing global crisis of antibiotic-resistant infections. Many of these drug-resistant bacteria are spread through hospitals, and there are few antibiotics available for treatment.

The study, published in PNAS, looks at a particular bacterium called Acinetobacter baumannii, which is highly infectious, spread mostly in hospitals and typically infects immunocompromised patients. The researchers employed an entirely new strategy to identify weaknesses specific to resistant bacteria and then target these weaknesses with an alternate drug. They found that fendiline, a drug that acts as a calcium channel blocker and formerly used to treat heart arrhythmia kills the bacterium by targeting the essential lipoprotein trafficking pathway, which is weakened in antibiotic resistant bacteria.

What the researchers say

“it’s critical that we find more and better therapeutics that can target these antibiotic-resistant infections which affect patients on ventilators, those with deep soft tissue infections, and the immunocompromised,” says Philip Rather, PhD, corresponding author on the paper and professor in the Emory University School of Medicine.

“This novel finding repurposes an existing drug, exploits a newly identified vulnerability in an antibiotic-resistant bacterium, and opens doors for developing new antibiotics targeting similar pathways,” says Jennifer Colquhoun, PhD, first author and research scientist at Emory University.

Why it matters

• The discovery that fendiline can selectively kill drug-resistant bacteria suggests a fast-track potential for treating infections that are currently difficult or impossible to manage with existing antibiotics.
• Since fendiline is already FDA-approved, there is potential for quicker clinical trials and deployment in treating serious hospital-acquired infections, particularly in immunocompromised patients.
• The drug selectively targets the specific bacterium, leaving the healthy bacteria in a patients gut flora intact.

Citation: Colquhoun et al., "Repurposing a drug to punish carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii," Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). June 10, 2025. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2423650122

 

---

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2423650122 

Article Title

Repurposing a drug to punish carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii

Article Publication Date

10-Jun-2025