The Landscape of Antibiotic Resistance
The Landscape of Antibiotic Resistance
In a 1945 interview with The New York Times, Alexander Fleming, who won a Nobel Prize that year for his discovery of pencillin, warned that misuse of the drug could result in selection for resistant bacteria. True to this prediction, resistance began to emerge within 10 years of the widescale introduction of penicillin. Indeed, although antibiotics have transformed the medical response to bacterial illness and rendered easily treatable many formerly deadly infections, the mishandling and misprescription of these drugs have transformed the bacterial population such that many antibiotics have partially or entirely lost their efficacy. The problem is severe enough that many experts believe the value of existing antibiotic therapies over the next 100 years is now uncertain. However, some also believe that with a proper response to the current trend in antibiotic resistance, these drugs might once again serve their original function.
Abstract
In a 1945 interview with The New York Times, Alexander Fleming, who won a Nobel Prize that year for his discovery of pencillin, warned that misuse of the drug could result in selection for resistant bacteria. True to this prediction, resistance began to emerge within 10 years of the widescale introduction of penicillin. Indeed, although antibiotics have transformed the medical response to bacterial illness and rendered easily treatable many formerly deadly infections, the mishandling and misprescription of these drugs have transformed the bacterial population such that many antibiotics have partially or entirely lost their efficacy. The problem is severe enough that many experts believe the value of existing antibiotic therapies over the next 100 years is now uncertain. However, some also believe that with a proper response to the current trend in antibiotic resistance, these drugs might once again serve their original function.
