Larva therapy, a method used to clean out wounds for centuries, is making a comeback in modern medicine. In the latest development, researchers claim they have purified an antibiotic from maggot secretions that kills many strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), as well as other bacteria. This new maggot juice may someday give patients all the benefits of the larva’s antibacterial properties, without the ick-factor of using actual larvae on a wound.
When some species of fly larvae are applied directly to wounds, they munch away on dead tissue, leaving healthy tissue intact. But keeping the maggots in a pouch on top of the infection seems to work, too, because the larvae secrete microbe-killing enzymes through the cloth.
