History Of Penicillin

A 30 year lull in new antibiotic production intensified what scientists were already fighting; the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria. As the prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacteria grew the use of antibiotics on pets, livestock, and agriculture grew as well and this cycle is still in effect today. The continual bombardment of antibiotics on bacteria that survives the treatment greatly contributes to the faster development of drug resistant diseases. Today nearly all known bacterial infections have developed resistance to one or more types of antibiotics in use (Todor). As evidence that drug resistance was developing was notable less than a decade after the clinical introduction of penicillin this gross spike is mostly due to the misinformation of the users, their negligence to fully treat their infections and the use of antibiotics on healthy individuals and ... ... middle of paper ... ...be similar to humans losing their resistance to mono after contracting it, cases have occurred but they are not normal.

In only the past few decades, antibiotics were hailed as the end to all suffering; a drug that could combat any ailment that plagued an individual. However, in recent years, scientists around the world have discovered that the over-use of this “wonder drug” could lead to more harmful bacteria. Typically, antibiotics work to eradicate the colonies of bacteria that cause infectious diseases in the individual. However, unlike our own DNA that contains checkpoints to prevent drastic mutation, bacteria do not have these and produce a wide variety of DNA sets in reproduction. Therefore, when bacteria are attacked by an antibiotic, the ones that are immune to the antibiotic survive and live on to reproduce and pass on the resistant DNA to the next generation.

Strep throat, whooping cough, tuberculosis and pneumonia are among some of the other fatal bacterial diseases which would usually result in a fatality. Antibiotics decreased the mortality rates, and so new antibiotics were formed. At his Nobel Peace Prize speech in 1945, Alexander Fleming warned against the misuse of antibiotics and the fact that by doing this, one allows the bacteria to ‘become educated’ and therefore become resistant to the antibiotic. It is believed that the first cases of antibiotic resistance were shortly after this speech. (Fleming, 1945) There are many medical professionals who believe that the rise of antibiotic resistance is a result of the overuse and misuse of antibiotics.

Although some pharmaceutical companies maintain active antibiotic research programs, many have halted their antibiotic programs. So despite encouraging research and development of new anitbacterial drugs is necessary, new drugs alone are not the answer. Ciprofloxacin (Cipro) was introduced in 1987, and it works by “allowing topoisomerases to cut DNA, but not “glue” the ends back together. The result is that the bacterium can no longer replicate its DNA, keeping the bacterial population in check” (Guilfoile 2007). However, Ciprofloxacin resistance is over 30 percent in some species of bacteria.

The above occurrence has lead to some bacteria becoming resistant to some forms of antibiotics (aka antibiotic resistant bacteria). Antibiotics were first discovered by Professor Alexander Fleming in 1928 by accident when cleaning up his laboratory. This coincidental discovery lead to Fleming and many other scientists changing society and medicine and the way people looked at what we now see as simple to treat. Prior to the discovery, surgery was almost impossible to perform due to the risk of infection, and nothing to counteract the bacteria. With the introduction of antibiotics, infections now being treated were before considered to be dangerous and even deadly.

Ehrlich however was especially famous for his procedure called chemotherapy. This procedure was described as stained bacteria using Robert Koch's procedures. As he worked, he noted that the dye would not color bacteria unless it joined with bacteria's substances, which if it combined, the bacteria usually get killed. He proposed that if he is able to find a chemical or a dye that kills bacteria without harming humans, he could develop a heal that would be inserted into people to kill germs, thus curing the disease. He later discovered trypan red, a dye that cured a laboratory mouse from the sleeping sickness (Zimmerman, 2003).

With the alarming increase in antibiotic resistant microbes, such as bacteria, fungi, viruses and parasites, there is a constant sense of serious threat all over the globe. Surveys conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) reported disturbing findings on microbe resistance numbers. With data from 114 countries, a report by the organization, released early November, addressed the discovery of a dangerous new pathogenic fungi which is tested to be completely resistant to the strongest antibiotics. "Excriosis is the first pathogen tested to be completely resistant to even the strongest of antibiotics," says Dr. Somerset Murali, a renowned microbiologist attached to WHO. "We are afraid there are more microbes with similar or greater resistance that we are unaware of."

In 1943, they did trials with the penicillin and it proved to be the most effective antibacterial agent to date. Before penicillin, they didn’t have sufficient treatment for infections like pneumonia, Lyme disease, typhoid fever, gangrene, chlamydia, or leptospirosis. At the start of World War II, they didn’t have penicillin. Therefore if somebody falls and, bacteria from the dirt gets inside their wound, and infects it they will probably die because they can’t cure the infection. Before, there were some antibiotics that could help with diseases but couldn’t get rid of them completely.

But when it gets past the power of WBCs, antibiotics are prescribed to prevent permanent damage to the body, permanent internal damage, sepsis or even death. The first antibiotic was Penicillin and this is a big component of modern day antibiotic medications such as ampicillin, amoxicillin and benzylpenicillin. Antibiotic resistance is when an antibiotic has lost its ability to effectively control or kill bacterial growth due to the bacterial organism changing its genetic makeup. In other words, the bacteria become resistant and continue to multiply despite the presence of therapeutic levels of an antibiotic. When a disease becomes antibiotic resistant, it is often considered incurable, and can pose a serious public health threat as a consequence.

Introduction: Antibiotics have the ability to kill or hinder the growth of bacteria. Antibiotics contain compounds that are naturally produced by organisms to combat diseases caused by microbes. Discovery of penicillin by Sir Alexander Fleming became the first stepping stone of many new antibiotics of today’s modern medicine. Antibiotics typically invade the very components that make up bacteria, such as cell walls and metabolic pathways (Sato et al., 2014). However, frequent mutations of bacteria cause today’s strains to become more resistant.