Graduate student Kristen LeGault and assistant professor Kimberley Seed, both in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, specialize in the evolution of human pathogens and the viruses that infect bacteria, known as ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jul 30, 2021
0
48
An untapped trove of desirable drug-like molecules is hidden in the genomes of Streptomyces bacteria—the same bacteria responsible for the first bacterial antibiotics to treat tuberculosis back in the 1940s.
Molecular & Computational biology
Jul 30, 2021
0
16
Bacteria are increasingly resistant, especially to antibiotics, which is a major global health problem. An example, related to the pandemic? Covid weakens hospitalized people so much that we are now witnessing an upsurge ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jul 29, 2021
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18
A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Italy, the US and Austria has found that changes to the human oral biome during the shift from foraging to farming were not nearly as dramatic as those that have ...
Decreasing bacterial acidity could help reduce antimicrobial resistance by eliminating bacteria that can survive being treated with antibiotics.
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 20, 2021
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15
Researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have developed a novel method for producing new antibiotics to combat resistant bacteria. Through an approach that would target bacteria with an antibiotic that is ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jul 19, 2021
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44
A small regulatory RNA found in many problematic bacteria, including Escherichia coli, appears to be responsible for managing the response of these bacteria to environmental stresses. Professor Charles Dozois from Institut ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 15, 2021
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6
Contamination of urban lakes, rivers and surface water by human waste is creating pools of 'superbugs' in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC)—but improving access to clean water, sanitation and sewerage infrastructure ...
Ecology
Jul 15, 2021
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8
Researchers have developed a new microfluidic platform to track a very rare type of cell that can survive antibiotic treatments. The results have important implications for microbiologists learning about the cellular control ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 12, 2021
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16
Scientists have produced the first fine-detail molecular blueprints of a bacterial enzyme known as Lit, which is suspected to play a "stealthy" role in the progression of infection by reducing the immune response.
Molecular & Computational biology
Jul 12, 2021
0
140
In common usage, an antibiotic (from the Ancient Greek: ἀντί – anti, "against", and βίος – bios, "life") is a substance or compound that kills bacteria or inhibits their growth. Antibiotics belong to the broader group of antimicrobial compounds, used to treat infections caused by microorganisms, including fungi and protozoa.
The term "antibiotic" was coined by Selman Waksman in 1942 to describe any substance produced by a microorganism that is antagonistic to the growth of other microorganisms in high dilution. This original definition excluded naturally occurring substances that kill bacteria but are not produced by microorganisms (such as gastric juice and hydrogen peroxide) and also excluded synthetic antibacterial compounds such as the sulfonamides. Many antibiotics are relatively small molecules with a molecular weight less than 2000 Da.[citations needed]
With advances in medicinal chemistry, most antibiotics are now semisynthetic—modified chemically from original compounds found in nature, as is the case with beta-lactams (which include the penicillins, produced by fungi in the genus Penicillium, the cephalosporins, and the carbapenems). Some antibiotics are still produced and isolated from living organisms, such as the aminoglycosides, and others have been created through purely synthetic means: the sulfonamides, the quinolones, and the oxazolidinones. In addition to this origin-based classification into natural, semisynthetic, and synthetic, antibiotics may be divided into two broad groups according to their effect on microorganisms: those that kill bacteria are bactericidal agents, while those that only impair bacterial growth are known as bacteriostatic agents.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
