But here's the kicker. This bacterium has been isolated from people, society — and drugs — for 4 million years, scientists report Thursday in the journal Nature Communications.
That means it hasn't been exposed to human drugs in a clinic or on a farm that uses them. But it has the machinery to knock out these drugs. And that machinery has been around for millions of years.
...
Because, Barton says, the bacterium is helping scientists understand where antibiotic resistance comes from and, hopefully, new ways to stop it. And the bacterium — called Paenibacillus (pronounced "penny-bacillus") — isn't pathogenic. It won't hurt you. It's just capable of evading many, many antibiotics.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @03:46PM
All antibiotic classes that are widely used by us today have a natural origin (from bacteria and fungi). If microorganisms producing those antibiotics were also living in that cave, resistance against it could have emerge easily.