Hum 300 , History & methods of science

Antibiotics

2007

After suffering a lot of devastating epidemic attacks and mass deaths humanity invented antibiotics and started applying them against known bacterial diseases . Using antibiotics for the last 6 decades , we are now facing the results of the process caused by genetic changes and mutations in bacteria . This can be explained by one of the basic principles of evolution : natural selection , which suggests that the fittest and the strongest survive , and the weakest disappear

Bacteria are one-celled organisms , which are very vulnerable to mutations . It is known that the

most of the mutations affect the organisms . But certainly , there are some chances of positive outcomes of mutations as well . Mitosis of bacteria is a very fast process , which brings to rapid growth of the population . Having such huge number of bacteria , the chances of positive mutation are higher , therefore , more and more bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics treatment

Nowadays , different types of pathogen bacteria can already survive the existing antibiotics , and using an excessive amount of antibiotics we dramatically fastened the process of natural selection in bacteria evolution . This situation threatens the effectiveness of traditional treatment methods to bacterial diseases . That is why world scientists are facing the necessity of searching for new antibiotics , either modifying the known ones or looking for something absolutely different

According to the research of the Harvard School of Public Health , in 2005 .more than 40 of Streptococcus pneumoniae strains in the United States could resist both penicillin and erythromycin (Powledge , 2004 The other researches , based on mathematical modeling , show that in the nearest future more and more species of bacteria will be able to resist old antibiotics . Therefore , if no new antibiotics are available , we 'll become etc

Bibliography

Powledge , T . M (2004 , February 17 . New Antibiotics - Resistance Is Futile . PLoS Biol 2 (2 : e53

PAGE

PAGE 2

Antibiotics

Page

PAGE...