07/20/04 -- More and more common antibiotics are losing their effectiveness because they are used too often, allowing bacteria to develop resistance to the drugs. A University of Rhode Island researcher has found a solution to this problem with a natural compound that boosts antibiotic strength from 100 to 1,000 times. While conducting research on infection prevention, URI Microbiology Professor Paul Cohen stumbled upon a compound -- lysophosphatidic acid -- that is naturally produced in the human body in great quantities wherever there is inflammation.According to Cohen, bacteria are divided into two groups -- Gram-positive and Gram-negative -- based on...