Researchers identify the component that allows a lethal type of bacteria to spread resistance to antibiotics

Antibiotic resistance of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus is responsible for 11,300 deaths a year in the United States alone—a figure that corresponds to half of all deaths caused by gram-positive resistant bacteria in that country. Such high mortality is related to the speed at which the bacterium acquires resistance to antibiotics. A study performed at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and involving the collaboration of the Centro de Investigaciones Bioló