Mexican Researchers Derive Antibiotics from Scorpion Venom and Habanero Peppers Against Drug-Resistant TB and MRSA

UNAM's Lourival Domingos Possani Postay led a team that extracted bioactive compounds from scorpion venom and habanero peppers, creating drugs showing activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Staphylococcus aureus. The work, done with Stanford chemist Richard Zare, targets pathogens driving multi-drug resistant infections. Clinical development remains years away, but the findings extend a growing pharmaceutical pipeline of venom-derived therapeutics addressing gaps in antibiotic discovery.