To find bioactive molecules with the potential to become new drugs less prone to antibiotic resistance, the researchers sequenced bacterial DNA extracted from soils from Rockefeller’s field center in upstate New York. (Brady lab) Most bacteria cannot be cultured in the lab—and that’s been bad news for medicine. Many of our frontline antibiotics originated from microbes, yet as antibiotic resistance spreads and drug pipelines run dry, the soil beneath our feet has a vast hidden reservoir of untap...