While we appear to live in a world of plenty, behind the scenes, sourcing sufficient amounts of key ingredients can be challenging. For example, the synthesis of certain antibiotics, beta-lactam ...

Beta-lactam antibiotics remain foundational in the fight against bacterial infections. Their mechanism relies on the four-membered β-lactam ring, essential for binding penicillin-binding proteins and ...

In the ongoing arms race with humans and their antibiotics on one side, and bacteria with their ability to evolve defenses to antibiotics on the other, humans have enlisted a new ally—other bacteria.

A carbapenem molecule, a last resort antibiotic, enters the carbapenemase enzyme (blue arrow), where the crucial beta-lactam structure gets broken down. The ineffective molecule then leaves (orange ...

Researchers have simplified the operation of an important class of chemical transformation: synthesis of beta-lactams, the intricate scaffold of many antibiotics. Their experimental protocol minimizes ...