A new smart window offers more than just a nice view—it also controls the transmittance of sunlight, heats the interiors of buildings by converting solar radiation into heat, and virtually eliminates E. coli bacteria living ...
Using a type of artificial intelligence known as deep learning, MIT researchers have discovered a class of compounds that can kill a drug-resistant bacterium that causes more than 10,000 deaths in the United States every ...
Cell & Microbiology
Dec 20, 2023
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202
Antimicrobial resistance represents one of the top 10 global public health threats according to the World Health Organization, and scientists have been scrambling to find new tools to cure the most deadly drug-resistant infections.
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 13, 2023
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101
Chemists at MIT have developed a novel way to synthesize himastatin, a natural compound that has shown potential as an antibiotic.
Biochemistry
Feb 24, 2022
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149
While biologists and chemists race to develop new antibiotics to combat constantly mutating bacteria, predicted to lead to 10 million deaths by 2050, engineers are approaching the problem through a different lens: finding ...
Biochemistry
Nov 4, 2021
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300
Researchers have developed a way to prop up a struggling immune system to enable its fight against sepsis, a deadly condition resulting from the body's extreme reaction to infection.
Bio & Medicine
Jan 6, 2020
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325
The venom of insects such as wasps and bees is full of compounds that can kill bacteria. Unfortunately, many of these compounds are also toxic for humans, making it impossible to use them as antibiotic drugs.
Biochemistry
Dec 7, 2018
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608
The human body produces many antimicrobial peptides that help the immune system fend off infection. Scientists hoping to harness these peptides as potential antibiotics have now discovered that other peptides in the human ...
Biochemistry
Aug 20, 2018
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137
Researchers from Cornell University have devised a peptidomimetic macrocyclic compound that is made from an acid-catalyzed cascade reaction. Their macrocycles are tunable in their backbone, side-chain composition and sequence, ...
Resistance to antibiotics has been found in the environment across Scotland, according to a new international study involving Strathclyde.
Ecology
May 14, 2024
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36
An antimicrobial is a substance that kills or inhibits the growth of microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, or protozoans, as well as destroying viruses. Antimicrobial drugs either kill microbes (microbicidal) or prevent the growth of microbes (microbistatic). Disinfectants are antimicrobial substances used on non-living objects.
The history of antimicrobials begins with the observations of Pasteur and Joubert, who discovered that one type of bacteria could prevent the growth of another. They did not know at that time that the reason one bacterium failed to grow was that the other bacterium was producing an antibiotic. Technically, antibiotics are only those substances that are produced by one microorganism that kill, or prevent the growth, of another microorganism. Of course, in today's common usage, the term antibiotic is used to refer to almost any drug that cures a bacterial infection. Antimicrobials include not just antibiotics, but synthetically formed compounds as well.
The discovery of antimicrobials like penicillin and tetracycline paved the way for better health for millions around the world. Before 1941, the year penicillin was discovered, no true cure for gonorrhea, strep throat, or pneumonia existed. Patients with infected wounds often had to have a wounded limb removed, or face death from infection. Now, most of these infections can be cured easily with a short course of antimicrobials.
However, the future effectiveness of antimicrobial therapy is somewhat in doubt. Microorganisms, especially bacteria, are becoming resistant to more and more antimicrobial agents. Bacteria found in hospitals appear to be especially resilient, and are causing increasing difficulty for the sickest patients–those in the hospital. Currently, bacterial resistance is combated by the discovery of new drugs. However, microorganisms are becoming resistant more quickly than new drugs are being made available; thus, future research in antimicrobial therapy may focus on finding how to overcome resistance to antimicrobials, or how to treat infections with alternative means, such as species-specific phages.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
