New 'Trojan horse' antibiotic promising in early clinical trials. The new antibiotic, cefiderocol, binds to iron and, in a deadly mistake, bacteria transport it past their defences and inside their cells.

It's designed to sound really interesting and to catch your attention, in my experience you get a very different reaction from people when you call that kind of compound "sideromycin" or "drug siderophore conjugate" and start talking about iron uptake in bacteria. This militaristic terminology was chosen so that communication with people who are not familiar with the topic would be easier : it's very useful to have terms like "trojan horse drug" that immediately conjure a very clear image of what you molecule actually does. But anyway it's still really interesting, as most things can be, when you're a scientist and it becomes a big part of your life

/r/Futurology Thread Parent Link - bbc.com