11/17/2009 0 Comments Contact Our News Editors

Combination drug therapy has become a staple for treating many infections. For instance, doctors treat extensively drug resistant forms of tuberculosis with one drug that breaks down the pathogen's protective barriers and opens the door for another to deliver the deathblow.

Just as some drugs work better together, however, other pairings are counter-productive. "The question we asked was how can it be that two drugs in combination are less effective than one of them alone," said senior author and Harvard Medical School associate professor of systems biology Roy Kishony.