Plants have developed complex responses to bacterial invasion, and offer long-term resistance to disease. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria, known as “superbugs,” are becoming more numerous and more virulent thanks to continuing overuse of antibiotics. Herbal medicine offers an alternative to these increasingly ineffective drugs. What follows is an excerpt...

In the race to protect society from infectious microbes, the bugs are outrunning us. The need for new therapeutic agents is acute, given the emergence of novel pathogens as well as old foes bearing heightened antibiotic resistance. Shelley Haydel, a researcher at Arizona State University’s Biodesign...