On Jul. 19, 2024, a study led by the University of Oxford reported that a group of small freshwater animals protect themselves from infections using antibiotic recipes stolen from bacteria that could help develop future medicines. 

The little-known creatures called bdelloid rotifers (which means ‘crawling wheel-animals’) live in moss, ponds, and soil. When these rotifers catch an infection, they switch on hundreds of genes that have been copied into their DNA from bacteria and other microbes. Some of these genes produce antibiotics and other protective chemicals against the disease. The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.