Florida State University, National MagLab investigate soil microbes from around the world for new antibacterial drugs

Edan Schultz

Thu, 05/21/26

*FSU chemistry professor Xiangpeng Li with his microfluidics system for droplet screening. (Stephen Bilenky/National High Magnetic Field Laboratory)*

A team of researchers from Florida State University and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory is looking to nature to find microbes that can be used to create new antibiotics to treat the growing threat of drug-resistant bacteria.

Infection from so-called “super bugs” is a leading cause of death globally. Drug resistant bacteria contribute to nearly five million deaths every year, according to the World Health Organization. As more pathogens develop resistance, that number is expected to jump nearly 70% in the next 25 years.

The team of FSU and MagLab researchers will screen soil microbes from around the world to hunt for sources of new antibacterial drugs. The Novo Nordisk Foundation is funding the project as part of an international drug discovery initiative.

“People have been searching for new antibiotics for many years, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to discover novel compounds. Our goal is to revolutionize the drug discovery pipeline,” said Xiangpeng Li, an assistant professor in the FSU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “If we don’t do anything, antibiotic resistance will be a huge problem for the human race.”

Left: Professor Xiangpeng Li in his lab holding a microfluidics device. Right: The piece of silicone is etched with tiny channels to control flow of microdroplets, allowing rapid screening and sorting of microbes in the search for new antibiotics. (Stephen Bilenky/National High Magnetic Field Laboratory)

Buried treasure: Potential medical marvels in the soil

Molecules made by microbes have long been used to treat bacterial infections. The first antibiotic, penicillin, was developed from mold nearly 100 years ago. Common antibiotics like streptomycin are produced by bacteria.

The researchers will test soil samples supplied by Rob Spencer, a biogeochemist and professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science. He studies the carbon cycle, and particularly the rapidly changing environments of the Arctic and tropics.

“It’s common to think about soils as just dirt, but they are essential for our nutrient, carbon and water cycles, and microbes in soils hold huge potential for discovery of new drugs,” Spencer said.

His samples from extreme environments like the polar regions hold particular promise because they have not been extensively examined.

“Those samples might contain very novel microbes,” Li said. “They have been frozen for maybe tens to hundreds of thousands of years. We are more likely to find new things.”

*A close-up view of the microfluidics device. (Stephen Bilenky/National High Magnetic Field Laboratory)*

How it works

To find sources for potential new antibacterial drugs, the team has the ambitious goal of screening a billion microbes.

*A diagram illustrating the drug discovery process.*

Li specializes in droplet microfluidics, manipulating tiny drops of fluid about the width of a human hair through troughs etched on a silicone disc to rapidly conduct chemical screening. His microfluidics system will quickly process tens of thousands of droplets at a time.

“Typically, when we search for new compounds from nature, it’s a rather arduous process working with individually isolated microbes, but with the speed of microfluidics and the analytical power of the Ion Cyclotron Resonance Facility, we can sample all of the microbes from a variety of environments all at once. It’s a very exciting collaboration,” said Edward Kalkreuter, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Inside the droplets, soil microbial cells will be combined with a common antibiotic-resistant bacterium called Klebsiella pneumoniae and a fluorescent color-coded tag to allow for rapid sorting.

Then the MagLab’s Ion Cyclotron Resonance Facility, or ICR, will identify bioactive molecules from the soil microbes.

“You might have a soil sample and it kills the Klebsiella, but you don’t know what those molecules are. So that’s where we come in,” said ICR Director Kicki Håkansson.

The lab’s powerful ICR mass spectrometers will analyze the droplets that show antimicrobial activity to determine which molecules are responsible for the antibacterial properties. The precision analysis will also be crucial for making sure the discovery is indeed new.

“We’re looking for signals that have not been discovered before. We don’t want to rediscover penicillin,” Li said. “To do that, we annotate the molecular composition of each signal and compare it against databases of known compounds.”

Taking on that data analysis challenge will be the team’s fifth member, Ryan Rodgers, a researcher at the ICR.

International collaboration

The researchers will also share data and ideas with 21 other research groups around the world as part of an international drug discovery consortium with additional funding provided by the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. This coordinated investment and collaborative effort will accelerate the search for new medications that are crucial to addressing this growing crisis.

“This new approach allows us to look very thoroughly at compounds that haven’t been looked at,” Håkansson said. “And if we find something, this could be transformative, which is what’s really exciting.”