To treat bacterial infections, medical professionals prescribe antibiotics. But not all active medicine gets used up by the body. Some of it ends up in wastewater, where antimicrobial-resistant bacteria can develop. Now, to make a more efficient antibiotic treatment, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science modified penicillin, so that it’s activated only by green light. In early tests, the approach precisely controlled bacterial growth and improved survival outcomes for infected insects.

A medical research team at Saarland University, led by Professor Bergita Ganse, has discovered a new approach to monitoring bone fracture healing by measuring blood supply to the tissue at the fracture site and the level of oxygen in the blood. Bone regeneration can be monitored quickly and easily using near-infrared light rather than harmful shorter wavelength radiation. Up until now, doctors have had to rely on X-ray images and CT scans to provide occasional snapshots of the fracture site. Ganse and her team have now published their findings in the journals ‘Biosensors and Bioelectronics’ and ‘Journal of Functional Biomaterials’.