A team of researchers from the University of Houston (UH) and St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital (SLEH) are working to develop improved screening methods to detect a potentially lethal, drug-resistant superbug that has made its way to Texas. Specifically, the research team looked at a multi-drug resistant bacterium called Klebsiella pneumoniae, which is increasingly resistant to most drugs of last resort. Commonly called CRKP, which is short for carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, the bacteria were found in three patients at St. Luke’s in 2010, and the team published a report about it in 2011 in the journal Diagnostic Microbiology & Infectious Disease.
