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The Discovery Of Antibiotics And Beyond

by — Last updated: 2016-03-12 in Drugs & Medications

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The discovery of penicillin in 1928 was most probably the biggest medical breakthrough of the 20th century. Illnesses such as syphilis, gonorrhea and tuberculosis could then be treated. How did doctors manage these issues before antibiotics though?

The first antibiotics

The French bacteriologist Jean Paul Vuillemin introduced the term antibiosis as a way to define the interaction between bacteria and organism which produced antibacterial products. Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch first described antibiosis in 1877 when they noted that airborne bacilli would suppress the growth of Bacillus anthracis (anthrax).

In 1928, Sir Alexander Flemming discovered the first antibiotic, although this term would first be used by Selman Waksman in 1942. This happened when he was working on a Petri dish with the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus and he came back to his work to find that a fungal mold had grown in the dish. The astonishing part was that the bacterium didn't grow near the mold and he deduced that the fungus produced antibacterial products. He then named this antibacterial product penicillin.

It wasn't until 1932 though that the first antibacterial sulphur based product, Prontosil, became commercially available. In 1939 the first naturally derived antibacterial product, tyrothricin, became available but was discontinued as it caused toxic effects in the human body. In 1942 the first purified penicillin, called penicillin G (PenG), was produced and became available to the Allied military forces in World War 2. By 1945 the antibiotic was available to the public as well. 

The effect that penicillin had was unbelievable and unprecedented. Not only did it end up treating previously debilitating illnesses such as syphilis, and other sexually transmitted diseases, but it also had a low toxicity on the human body which made it very safe to use. Even though penicillin has been available as a viable treatment for bacterial infections for over 60 years, it still has potency against most pathogenic organisms despite the presence of drug resistant bacteria.

Where to from here?

Antibiotic resistance is a growing issue though and further research into new antibiotic treatments are currently being done. Besides pathogenic bacteria evolving to be able to withstand the activity of antibacterial agents, other reasons for bacterial resistance is over-prescribing antibiotics and prescribing antibiotics for infections which are not bacterial in origin. Therefore greater care needs to be taken by healthcare providers when treating patients with infectious diseases.

The fluoroquinolones were the last broad spectrum antibiotics discovered and they introduced in 1961 with resistance to them already noted in 1968. The last antibiotics to be discovered were the dairylquinolones in 1997 and since then no new antibiotics had been found.

Currently there are a few antibiotics awaiting phase 2 and 3 research to be concluded on them but they are combinations of drugs which already exist. They are aimed at managing Gram-negative bacilli (GNB) rather than being available for broad spectrum antibacterial activity. 

READ New NDM-1 Superbug Gene Resistant to Even the Most Powerful Antibiotics

Nanotechnology regarding antibacterial activity is a very exciting concept where microscopic nanobots are introduced to the infected individual, and these bots then isolate pathological bacteria and destroy them through various mechanisms. These can include cell wall disruption, negatively affecting their enzymatic processes, protein denaturation, mitochondrial damage and DNA damage. Nanotechnology can also be used to make products which can coat instruments and medical devices to protect them from getting infected with pathological bacteria.

    

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