Study: Tasmanian Devil Milk Could Help Fight 'Superbugs'

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- New research out of Australia points to an unlikely source of help in the battle against antiobiotic-resistant superbugs -- Tasmanian devils.

The milk of the marsupials, which live only on Australia's Tasmania island, contain peptides that are capable of killing "problematic human pathogens," including Staphylococcus aureus, more commonly known as MRSA.

That's according to research done by University of Sydney scientists and published this month in Scientific Reports.

The researchers concluded that that animal likely evolved in this way to protect their "immunologically naive young," who, like other marsupials, are born when they are in a very early stage of development and without adaptive immune systems.

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