Evolution and Antibiotic Resistance

Evolution and Antibiotic Resistance

While reading the article titled, "Are We Running Out Of Antibiotics", by Jeneen Interlandi I discovered that many doctors that are still practicing now can remember a life before antibiotics. Many people wonder if there were ever a time in life that people didn't have to worry about some kind of disease or outbreak.

Some people don't know what evolution and antibiotic resistance are. Evolution is a process that has been at work on earth for hundreds of millions of years; modern biological science has been around for less than a century and a half. Antibiotic resistance is a type of drug resistance where a microorganism is able to survive exposure to an antibiotic. Before infections became well known many people were careless about what they did and how they did it because no one was worried about anything until an outbreak came to surface. We lacked the knowledge for many of the diseases to be able to cure them and a lot of people died due to the lack of cures.

Antibiotic- resistance in the United States is becoming more common than ever now. An infectious-disease specialist like Brad Spellberg of UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine have been reading up on those days because of the growing fear they are not all in the past (Interlandi, para.2). Many of the wealthiest counties seem to take for granted the triumph of science over bacteria. According to Dr. Spellberg, "It's already happening roughly 100,000 deaths a year from antibiotic-resistant infections in the united States alone (Interlandi, para.2).

During the 1940's penicillin hit the pharmacy shelves and humanity embarked on a decades-long quest to collect as many soil samples as possible and probe them for potential miracle cures (Interlandi, para.4). During this time many of the pharmaceutical companies produced 200 new drugs in about three decades as they led charge in harvesting the vast collection.

By the time the 1980's hit many new discoveries came to surface. According to AstraZeneca medical director John Rex, "There are a set of rules that chemists follow when looking for new drugs." For a time, scientists thought the molecular wizardry of modern drug design--small molecules, high throughput screening, and the like--might reinvigorate our war against bacteria, the same way it reinvigorated our war against cancer. No such luck. (Interlandi, para.5). Many new medicines were discovered and used and doctors always have a new drug that they can use to help cure an infection.

In conclusion, evolution and antibiotic resistance goes hand in hand with each other. The evolution of the diseases and infections are spreading throughout the United States. Many are working on antibiotic resistant medicines to help fight the diseases and cure the infections that many people in the United States are dying from. Although there