A plate of glowing red bacteria holds the key to taking the first step in finding a new cure for the biggest infectious killer in the world.

University of Queensland researcher and senior lecturer Nick West and his 140 students had one task for the semester: stop that plate of bacteria glowing.

In an uncommon way of teaching, Dr West had his students help conduct his research into drugs that could cure tuberculosis (TB).

A few of his students completed that task, identifying five or six compounds that stopped the growth of a bacteria related to tuberculosis.

He said it was a long way before they could claim a significant breakthrough, but it was a good start.

"We could have identified the next antibiotic for the treatment of TB – of course that's unlikely, but it could be," Dr West said.

The third-year undergraduate course offered students a chance to get experience in research that would be performed in commercial industries.

"It's pretty exciting and I think the students were thrilled to be part of something that wasn't just made to work, this is genuine research.

"They were really stimulated by the idea that we were looking for new drugs to cure the biggest killer of any infectious disease in the world."

The students used a safe relative of the tuberculosis bacteria that grows quicker and then sped up the process by engineering the bacteria to glow.

Then they were given a portion of 7000 drug-like compounds to test against the bacteria.

All the students had to do was test their compounds against the bacteria and hope it would stop glowing, indicating that the bacteria had stopped growing.

"At the moment we don't know what [the compounds] are, because they were sent to us unidentified."

Scientists and academics from around Australia send their compounds to Compounds Australia, which then distribute them to scientists around the country in the hope it could help someone else.

"I have no feeling for why the compounds were developed in the first place and most of the time they were never made to be an antibiotic.

"All I can say about [the working compounds] is that they are drug-like molecules that completely inhibit the bacteria related to TB."

There has been no new general-use tuberculosis drug in 50 years and the latest drug created recently was only for those with an extremely resistant form of tuberculosis with no other choice.

The next step for Dr West is to get in contact with the scientists that created them, find how the compounds work and see if they are toxic to humans.

"It's been said it's easy to kill bacteria, but it's hard to keep the host alive."

And if after all the testing the new compounds fail to become the next treatment for tuberculosis, there are tens of thousands of more compounds to test.

Over the next few years they can keep students testing the compounds in the hope that one day they will find the right drug.