A UMass-Amherst biologist is getting money from the Chinese government to research antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Peg Riley says she’s been trying for more than fifteen years to get U.S. research money to help develop news ways to explore a solution to what are known as ‘super bugs’. Those are germs that become resistant to antibiotics that used to be effective, causing many thousands of deaths a year.

Riley says she’s been working on a new approach — using proteins rather than chemicals — to develop better drugs, but that it took a Chinese researcher with funding from his government to support it.

“So if the Chinese government is the place that’s going to put the money on the table, I have no problem with that,” Riley says, “because all of humanity will be rewarded if this all works.”

Riley says she’ll get about 30 million dollars this spring from the Chinese government for her research, which she’ll start doing in China. She hopes eventually to open a satellite lab in Springfield.

The Chinese government will own all patents for the work.