SLIME from the ocean bed half a world away could produce new antibiotic drugs, according to North-East scientists.

A collaboration between scientists in Newcastle, Japan and Germany has found a new type of bug that could save the lives of millions.

The discovery follows a chance meeting between a Newcastle scientist and the head of a marine research institute from Japan.

This led to samples of sediment from the other side of the world being scooped up by a Japanese submarine and analysed in Tyneside laboratories.

The amazed Newcastle microbiologists found a way of producing compounds from the newly discovered actinomycete organisms, which could be used as antibiotic drugs.

MRSA, the killer hospital bug that is starting to become immune to the most powerful antibiotics available today, was no match for a compound derived from the new bug, called abyssomicin C.

The scientists, who are working with a German professor, have also found that the same compound is effective against malaria protozoa, the microscopic animals that can spread the potentially dangerous disease.

Professor Mike Goodfellow, professor of microbiological systematics, said: "This discovery is potentially very significant. It is early days, but we have high hopes for what might be achieved."

Experts around the world have predicted that mankind faces potential calamity unless new types of antibiotics can be developed.

Prof Goodfellow said the active compound isolated from the sediment had been patented, and that the next step was to form a company to develop and market what is potentially a new group of antibiotics.

"There has been a world search to find ways of killing MRSA. We are extremely pleased to have found this new antibiotic," he said.

He predicted that the sea bed, once thought to be a biological desert, would be found to be teeming with bacteriological life.

The Japan connection was formed after professor Alan Bull, who is part of the Newcastle team that isolated the new compound, met a leading Japanese researcher at an international conference.

* The success of a hospital's pilot hygiene scheme has resulted in it being extended to all wards. York Hospital was chosen as one of six pilot sites for the National Patient Safety Agency's Clean Your Hands campaign in 2003.

It concentrates on making sure all staff clean their hands with alcohol gel before and after contact with patients. Patients are also encouraged to ask staff if they have cleaned their hands and to tell visitors to do the same.

The campaign is now being introduced to all the wards operated by York Hospitals NHS Trust.