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As if we needed another reason to save the cuddly panda bear from extinction… Chinese researchers have discovered a potent antibiotic called cathelicidin-AM in the animal’s blood which they believe could be used to develop treatments for human diseases—including drug-resistant superbugs.

Scientists have discovered that the animals, of which there are around 1,600 in the wild, produce a powerful antibiotic in their blood stream that kills bacteria and fungi.

Fortunately, scientists will not need to depend upon the animal’s notoriously unreliable breeding capacity to harvest the new antibiotic as they have been able to synthesis it artificially in the lab by decoding the genes to produce a small molecule known as a peptide.

Nobody tell Charlie Sheen about this.

[Cheers telegraph]