One of the biggest medical problems of our age is the rise of antibiotic resistance which means that many of our commonly used drugs are no longer able to kill germs they once controlled and there has been a rise in "superbugs" such as MSRA .

Most antibiotics were derived from nature , many coming from the soil but there have been no new ones for decades . It has been found very difficult to grow microbes from the soil in labs.

However, Dr Kim Lewis and his team at Northeastern University have developed a way of growing these antibacterials in a specially developed diffusion chamber where microbes are added to alga in a layer held between 2 semipermeable membranes and then put back in the ground again , where they find the nutrients and conditions they need in order to grow . Once a large enough colony has been produced , it can then be grown on in petri dishes.

A new anti-microbial compound called Teixobactin is being developed which has proved effective against MRSA and Tuberculosis in mice . Human trials are expected to take place in about two years time .