Medical researchers are working hard to find not only new antibiotics that could topple the superbug, but also ways to safeguard hospitals and other MRSA hotbeds from the bacteria.

FORBES: How IBM Plans To Kill the Staph Superbug

Antigen-presenting cells collect fragments of proteins from foreign bodies (normally pathogens, such as viruses and bacteria, but also transplanted organs) and show these to T cells, in order to tell them what to attack.

ECONOMIST: Breaching the body's defences