Chemical and Engineering News (February 15) -- Bacteria have long been a prolific source of potentially therapeutic natural products, but only about 1 percent of bacteria can be grown in the lab. Researchers report the discovery of a new class of antibiotics called malacidins that bypasses the need to culture bacteria. “It will take many years to develop malacidins into new antibiotics, even in the best scenario,” says Huimin Zhao, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Illinois who was not involved in the study.