A new part of the immune system has been discovered and it is a gold mine of potential antibiotics, scientists said.

They have shown a part of the body known to recycle protein, with a secret mode that can remove an arsenal of bacteria-killing chemicals.

Researchers in Israel say that it changes our understanding of how we are safe from infection.

And gives a new place to search for antibiotics to deal with the increasing problem of superbugs opposing our current drugs.

Search center on protiazom – a small structure found in each cell of the body.

Its main role is to cut old proteins into small chunks to recycled them to make them new.

But a series of experiments, Detailed in journal natureWhen a cell is infected with bacteria, proteisom is detected.

This then changes the structure and role. It begins to convert old proteins into weapons that can open the outer layer of bacteria to kill them.

Professor Yifat Marb, Professor of Weaizman Institute of Science, told me: “This is really exciting, because we never knew that it was happening.

“We discovered a novel mechanism of immunity that is allowing us to protect against bacterial infections.

“This is happening throughout our body in all cells, and produces a new class of potential natural antibiotics.”

The research team passed through a process, called “dumpster diving” to find these natural antibiotics.

They were tested on mice with bacteria and pneumonia and sepsis growing in the laboratory. Researchers said that they were getting equal results of some established antibiotics.

And when researchers took cells in the laboratory and made proteisom disabled, they were very easy to infect with bacteria such as Salmonella.

Professor Daniel Davis, The Head of Life Sciences and an immunologist at Imperial College London said the conclusions were “very stimulating and very interesting” because they changed our understanding of how our body fights infection.

“What is really exciting about this, is it a completely unseen process by which anti-German molecules are made inside our cells, it seems deeply and surprising.”

But he warned that turning it into a new source of antibiotics is an idea that “still needs to be tested” and it will take time.

More than a million people are expected to die of infection in a year, resistant to drugs such as antibiotics.

But despite the requirement, there is a lack of research in developing new antibiotics to maintain with demand.

Against that foggy background, it is a source of optimism for some scientists.

Dr., a senior lecturer of microbiology at King’s College London. Lindsay Edwards told the BBC, “It is a possible goldmine for new antibiotics, it is quite exciting.

“In the previous years it has been digging the soil (to find new antibiotics), it is wild that it is something within us, but comes down to the technique to be able to detect these things.”

She also says that she can have fewer issues with developing them in drugs because they are already a human body products, so “its safety side can be very easy”.