A chemist based at the University of Copenhagen has just taken out a patent for a drug that can make previously multidrug-resistant bacteria responsive to antibiotics once again.

Jørn Bolstad and his chemist colleagues hope that the substance will soon be able to tackle the tremendous problems associated with multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). But first, they need to find investors interested in getting the substance onto the market.

Before the development of penicillin, people dropped like flies in response to minor infections: in the lungs, in small cuts. Even pimples could grow to boils that killed. But one of the main killers prior to the discovery of antibiotics was tuberculosis.