Most adults, especially considering what happened 5 years ago, now understand at least a little of how the human immune system works.

But a new study out of Israel has demonstrated that even after 120 years of research, there was a whole new component of that system which is now being theorized as a “gold mine” of potential antibiotics.

Inside each of our cells, the discovering team explains in their study, a tiny structure called a proteasome recycles damaged and dead proteins to make new ones, a vital and normal function of cellular repair and maintenance. However, the proteasome has another responsibility that immunologists have never identified: fighting off bacterial infections.