AHLs, and has been screening them in laboratory cultures to test their effects on various species of bacteria.

ECONOMIST: Novel antibiotics

The screening process, developed at Utah State University, uses laboratory created antibodies which bind only to specific types of bacteria.

BBC: Speedy 'burger bug' test

At the laboratory of Aurora, a San Diego-based firm specializing in such mass screening, little needles squirt a billionth of a liter of a potential drug into 3, 456 millimeter-wide wells. (The squirters come from another silicon-based business: ink-jet printers.) In the wells are biologically interesting molecules, such as enzymes, or cells that may present targets to new medicines.

FORBES: A hail of silver bullets