Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Researchers cure drug-resistant infections without antibiotics

Biochemists, microbiologists, drug discovery experts and infectious disease doctors have teamed up in a new study that shows antibiotics are not always necessary to cure sepsis in mice. Instead of killing causative bacteria ...

Medications

Can I still use prescription drugs after they expire?

The Harvard Medical School republished a well-worn article in August that recounted a 1985 study in which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) looked to pinpoint expiration dates for more than 100 drugs in an effort ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Drug-resistant gene goes from pig farms to patients worldwide

A troublesome gene that is resistant to an antibiotic often used as a last resort has been tracked from its origins on Chinese pig farms to hospital patients worldwide in a new study led by UCL and Peking University People's ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Drug-resistant superbug spreading in hospitals: study

A superbug resistant to all known antibiotics that can cause "severe" infections or even death is spreading undetected through hospital wards across the world, scientists in Australia warned on Monday.

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

First proof a synthesized antibiotic is capable of treating superbugs

A "game changing" new antibiotic which is capable of killing superbugs has been successfully synthesised and used to treat an infection for the first timeā€”and could lead to the first new class of antibiotic drug in 30 years.

Pediatrics

Breastfeeding protects infants from antibiotic-resistant bacteria

A recent study completed at the University of Helsinki investigated the amount and quality of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in breast milk and gut of mother-infant pairs. The findings have been published in the journal Nature ...

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Antibiotic resistance

Antibiotic resistance is the ability of a microorganism to withstand the effects of antibiotics. It is a specific type of drug resistance. Antibiotic resistance evolves via natural selection acting upon random mutation, but it can also be engineered by applying an evolutionary stress on a population. Once such a gene is generated, bacteria can then transfer the genetic information in a horizontal fashion (between individuals) by plasmid exchange. If a bacterium carries several resistance genes, it is called multiresistant or, informally, a superbug. The term antimicrobial resistance is sometimes used to explicitly encompass organisms other than bacteria.

Antibiotic resistance can also be introduced artificially into a microorganism through transformation protocols. This can aid in implanting artificial genes into the microorganism. If the resistance gene is linked with the gene to be implanted, the antibiotic can be used to kill off organisms that lack the new gene.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA