Bacteria discovery could yield antibiotics

Johns Hopkins researchers discovered a new weakness in bacteria that could yield an entirely new class of antibiotics ? the next generation?s penicillin.

The sweet spot is a structure called a Z ring, like a cinch strap that forms around the bacterium?s waist during cell division and pinches it into two daughter cells, said Alex Dajkovic and Denis Wirtz, who published their findings recently in the journal Current Biology.