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Thesis statement on antibiotic resistance
Research on antibiotic resistance
Research on antibiotic resistance
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Problem Background
About a hundred years ago, infectious diseases were the leading cause of death in the world as there were no treatments available for diseases caused by bacteria such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhea, rheumatic fever and urinary tract infections. In 1929, when microbiologist Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, the era of medicine began. Since then, a variety of antibiotics have been discovered that attacks the bacteria in different ways. Most antibiotics, like penicillin attacks the bacterial cell wall by inhibiting the synthesis of a component of the cell wall called peptidoglycan. Similarly, vancomycin attacks the bacterial cell wall but in a different way. Other classes of antimicrobial, like quinolones inhibits DNA replication; tetracyclines inhibit protein synthesis; and rifamycin inhibits RNA synthesis in the bacteria, thereby preventing bacterial multiplication.
Despite its miraculous function, antibiotic resistance can develop when an antibiotic is unable to control or kill bacterial growth. Bacteria can become resistant naturally, by genetic mutation or by acquiring resistance from other bacteria. Antibiotics kill susceptible bacteria while promoting selective pressure causing the survival of resistant bacterial strains. This mechanism is can be enhanced with the overuse and abuse of antibiotics. Spontaneous mutations rarely occur as it is estimated to occur one in one million to one in ten million cells. Bacteria can also develop antibiotic resistance from other bacteria by the reception of their genes through a simple mating process, called conjugation. Additionally, resistance traits can also be passed on by viruses. Regardless of how the bacterium acquires the resistant genes, they are ...
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...monitoring and research.
Despite the critical need for new antibiotics, for the past 15 years major pharmaceuticals that were involved in antibiotic research and development such as Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lily and Sanofi left the antibiotic research market because of its challenges in research, complicated regulatory by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and low returns on their investments. In the 1980s, thirty new antibiotics were approved by the FDA and from 2010 to 2012, only one was approved, emphasizing the difficult regulations. The estimated average cost of developing a new antibiotic is $359 million and it takes an average of 12 years for the drug to travel from the research lab to the patient. A strong necessity for new antibiotics has certainly arrived with the rapid rise in the number of antimicrobial resistant bacteria or superbugs.
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are created when mutations in the pathogen's genetic code occurs, changing the protein in the bacteria that the antibiotics normally go after into a shape that the antibiotic can not recognize. The average bacteria divides every twenty minutes, so if a contaminated spot has one single bacteria in the morning, there could be trillions on that same spot at the end of the day. That means that when counting all the possibilities of mutations, the amount of mutated offspring that the bacteria might have formed during those replications could be as high as in the millions. Fortunately though, this does not happen so frequently that it is normally an issue. The amount of non-mutated bacteria vastly outnumbers the mutated ones and many of the mutations occurring in the bacteria usually have either a harmful effect, or not effect at all on its function. That means that the pathogen is still relatively less harmful than it c...
The natural components of antibiotics have been used as local remedies long before humans understood the reasons why these sometimes-radical treatments worked. Penicillin became the first manufactured antibiotic after physician Alexander Fleming published articles regarding this bacteria-disabling mold in 1928. Come 1932, penicillin was commonly used to treat infected war injuries, saving the lives of unnumbered soldiers (Lewis). Since then, penicillin has b...
Antibiotic resistance is one of the most important issues facing health care today, with wide reaching future implications if abuse continues. In the United States alone, antibiotic resistance is responsible for over two million illnesses and 23,000 deaths per year. Providers need to be judicious in the disbursement of these life saving pharmacological agents, while being informative of why antibiotics are not always the answer (Talkington, Cairns, Dolen, & Mothershed, 2014). In the case listed below, several issues need to be addressed including perception, knowledge deficit, and the caregiver’s role. This paper will focus on whether a prescription for antibiotics is appropriate and other courses of action that may be taken instead.
Acquired antimicrobial resistance generally can be ascribed to one of five mechanisms. These are production of drug-inactivating enzymes, modification of an existing target, acquisition of a target by-pass system, reduced cell permeability and drug removal from the cell. (Sefton) Also a bacterium that was once prone to an antibiotic can gain resistance through alt...
Long before humans discovered antibiotics, they existed in nature. So naturally, after penicillin was introduced, some germs were already naturally resistant to the drug. As we used more and more of the antibiotics, we incidentally caused drug-resistant germs to progress. So, even if you’ve never misused antibiotics, you could still become infected by bacterium most drugs won’t kill. For each drug, there are germs genetically programmed to survive- some w/ outer walls tough for antibiotic to cross, others with ways to dump the drugs back out before they can work, and yet others can inactivate the antibiotic. Even worse, by passing tiny packets of genetic material to other bacteria, these survivor germs sometimes also pass the formula for resistance to the other bacteria. The best way you can protect yourself and your family against drug-resistant bacteria is by using antibiotics correctly. Taking them when they’re not needed encourages the takeover of drug-resistant strains in your body. (Redbook, pg.95) That’s because when antibiotics are given, the normal bacteria in your body are killed off, leaving lots of bacterial “parking spaces'; open. And the germ left to fill them is the drug-resistant ones. (Redbook, pg.95) So far, antibiotic resistance has not been a big problem with streptococcus A, the germ familiar to all of us for causing millions of cases of strep thr...
Throughout history disease has run rampant taking many lives with every passing day. Finding a cure or even just a tool in the battle has been the main focus of scientist throughout time. This focus is what brought us the discovery of antibiotics. Over the years antibiotics have been misused by patients, over prescribed by physicians and have led to resistant strains of bacteria.
Compounding all of these solutions, the pharmaceutical industry needs to conduct extensive research on developing new antibiotics for various pathogenic bacteria by studying the bacterial structure. This will help scientists to formulate ways of counteracting the functions of the various constituents of bacteria.
Bacterial resistance to antibiotics has presented many problems in our society, including an increased chance of fatality due to infections that could have otherwise been treated with success. Antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections, but overexposure to these drugs give the bacteria more opportunities to mutate, forming resistant strains. Through natural selection, those few mutated bacteria are able to survive treatments of antibiotics and then pass on their genes to other bacterial cells through lateral gene transfer (Zhaxybayeva, 2011). Once resistance builds in one patient, it is possible for the strain to be transmitted to others through improper hygiene and failure to isolate patients in hospitals.
Penicillin, derived from the mold Penicillium, is the first antibiotic to successfully treat bacterial infections on humans. It was accidentally discovered by scientist, Alexander Fleming. While Fleming was growing Staphylococcus, a serious and often deadly infection, in a dish, he noticed the bacteria had stopped growing after a mold found its way
For a drug to get to market it must go through several stages of research and development (Abbott and Vernon). Starting with discovery research, preclinical testing on animals, three phases of clinical trials on humans, and finally FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approval (Abbott and Vernon). Out of several thousands of drugs only a few will make it to the FDA approval stage (Abbott and Vernon). Testing is a highly regulated, time consuming, and expensive process. From beginning to end the process can take fifteen years and less than one of five compounds will make it to market where it is still not guaranteed to succeed (Abbott and
In the last decade, the number of prescriptions for antibiotics has increases. Even though, antibiotics are helpful, an excess amount of antibiotics can be dangerous. Quite often antibiotics are wrongly prescribed to cure viruses when they are meant to target bacteria. Antibiotics are a type of medicine that is prone to kill microorganisms, or bacteria. By examining the PBS documentary Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria and the article “U.S. government taps GlaxoSmithKline for New Antibiotics” by Ben Hirschler as well as a few other articles can help depict the problem that is of doctors prescribing antibiotics wrongly or excessively, which can led to becoming harmful to the body.
Since antibiotics, such as penicillin, became widely available in the 1940s, they have been called miracle drugs. They have been able to eliminate bacteria without significantly harming the other cells of the host. Now with each passing year, bacteria that are immune to antibiotics have become more and more common. This turn of events presents us with an alarming problem. Strains of bacteria that are resistant to all prescribed antibiotics are beginning to appear. As a result, diseases such as tuberculosis and penicillin-resistant gonorrhea are reemerging on a worldwide scale (1).
The discovery of antibiotics is attributed to Alexander Fleming who discovered the first antibiotic to be commercially used (Penicillin) in approximately 1928. An antibiotic, also known as an antimicrobial, is a medication that is taken in order to either destroy or slow the growth rate of bacteria. Antibiotics are integral to the success of many medical practises, such as; surgical procedures, organ transplants, the treatment of cancer and the treatment of the critically ill. (Ramanan Laxminarayan, 2013)
It is estimated that over one-half of the antibiotics in the U.S. are used in food animal production. The overuse of antimicrobials in food animal production is an under-appreciated problem. In both human and veterinary medicine, the risk of developing resistance rises each time bacteria are exposed to antimicrobials. Resistance opens the door to treatment failure for even the most common pathogens and leads to an increasing number of infections. The mounting evidence of the relationship between antimicrobial use in animal husbandry and the increase in bacterial resistance in humans has prompted several reviews of agricultural practices by scientific authorities in a number of countries, including the US.
The most effective way to combat pathogenic bacteria which invade the body is the use of antibiotics. Overexposure to antibiotics can easily lead to resistant strains of bacteria. Resistance is dangerous because bacteria can easily spread from person to person. Simple methods for preventing excessive bacterial spread are often overlooked. Not all preventative measures are even adequate. Doctors and patients often use antibiotics unnecessarily or incorrectly, leading to greater resistance. Antibiotics are used heavily in livestock and this excessive antibiotic use can create resistant bacteria and transfer them to humans. In order to reduce resistant bacteria,