New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1) is a gene that makes bacteria resistant to antibiotics of the carbapenem family. It encodes a type of beta-lactamase enzyme called a carbapenemase. Bacteria that carry this gene are often referred to by news reporters as "superbugs." There are currently no new drugs in the research pipelines that aim to stop NDM-1.

To date, some strains of E.coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae are known carriers of the gene, but the gene can be transmitted from one strain of bacteria to another through horizontal gene transfer. The gene produces a metallo-beta-lactamase, an enzyme that hydrolyzes and inactivates antibiotics in the beta-lactam family. Those antibiotics were, until recently, capable of killing most bacteria by inhibiting the synthesis of one of their cell wall layers.

The resistance conferred by this gene therefore aids the expansion of bacteria that carry it throughout a human host, since they will face less opposition/competition from populations of antibiotic-sensitive bacteria, which will be diminished by the original antibacterial treatment. The following antibiotics are inactivated by the enzyme: The gene was named after New Delhi, the capital city of India, and was discovered by Yong et al. It is now widespread in India and neighbouring country Pakistan, especially in hospitals.

It has been brought from that region to Europe by people undergoing hospitalisation in those countries. Those people were mainly infected by NDM-1 carrying bacteria while undergoing surgery under non fully-aseptic conditions. In a lot of cases people went there to undergo cosmetic surgery at a lower cost, getting infected during the procedure and bringing the resistant bacteria back to their country of origin.

As of June 2010, there were three reported cases of Enterobacteriaceae isolates bearing this newly described resistance mechanism in the US.

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