Antimicrobials from Actinomycetes: Back to the Future

T he two-faced Roman god Janus could see both forward and backward simultaneously. In describing the “Janus Effect” as it relates to the effectiveness of corporate chief executive officers (CEOs), California business gurus James Kouzes and Barry Posner suggest that CEOs who reflect furthest back are those who also plan ahead most effectively. In terms of antibiotic discovery, we would do well to reflect on the past as a way of enhancing our forward thinking. Lately the prospects for progress are poor, particularly after several large pharmaceutical companies recently abandoned their natural products and infectious disease discovery programs. Moreover, we are failing to identify new antibiotics despite having powerful experimental tools such as genomics, combinatorial chemistry, and high-throughput in vitro screening at our disposal.