Firm secures grant to help fight antibiotic resistance
Whitby-based company Natures Laboratory has received a funding award worth over £180,000 from Innovate UK.
The cash will be used to develop new ways in which propolis – a natural antibiotic produced by bees – can be used to help meet the worldwide crisis in antibiotic resistance.
Propolis is made from resins which the bees collect from trees and plants. They take the resins back to the hive, process them through their enzymatic system and then combine them with wax.
They then use propolis to seal up the hive against infection.
James Fearnley
Research has shown that propolis has antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal and anti-tumoral properties.
Natures Laboratory’s CEO, James Fearnley, said: “We have known about the anti-microbial activity of propolis since the 1940s and our own research in 1998 at University of Oxford confirmed this.
“During the last 30 years we have, with our university research colleagues in this country and round the world, published over 30 scientific reports about propolis and have made some remarkable discoveries.
“Our most dramatic discovery came just over a year ago during the COVID lockdown in work we are funding at Leeds Becket University.
“We discovered that if you combine propolis with antibiotics that have effectively stopped working, like penicillium, they start working again. Exactly why and how this works we are still working on but obviously the potential benefits of combining antibiotics and propolis are enormous.”
He added the Innovate UK Award will fund a two-year project, where the company will build on its existing work in collaboration with the Department of Pharmacological Engineering Science at University of Bradford.
The business will explore how it can use cutting edge science to develop products locally that can make a lasting contribution to a global problem.
