Antibacterial/Antibiotic:
In 1928 that Alexander Fleming observed antibiosis against bacteria by a fungus of the genus Penicillium.
Fleming postulated the effect was mediated by an antibacterial compound
named penicillin, and that its antibacterial properties could be
exploited for chemotherapy.
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| Sir Alexander Fleming, 1952 Photograph courtesy of Associated Press |
The discovery of such a powerful antibiotic was unprecedented, and the
development of penicillin led to renewed interest in the search for
antibiotic compounds with similar efficacy and safety. These drugs were later renamed antibiotics by Selman Waksman, an American microbiologist, in 1942.
Antibiotics and World War 2:
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Penicillin, the first natural antibiotic discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928 |
1939 - coinciding with the start of world war 2,
commercially manufactured antibiotics universally and effectively used to treat wounds and ulcers during WW2.
As the first antibiotic discovered was penicillin. Penicillin was first widely used on large numbers of patients in World War II (1939–45).
The wonder drug:
Penicillin was first tested for military use
in the spring of 1943, with pilot studies on
soldiers with chronic bacterial infections in
Bushnell General Hospital in Utah and Halloran
General Hospital in New York. By autumn,
doctors were using antibiotic in combat zones,
where it was limited to American and Allied military and to patients
with life-threatening infections.
for hypodermic injection contained 100,000 units). During the war, the armed forces
received 85 percent of the
nation's production, which amounted to 231
billion units in 1943. With the implementation
of successful mass-production techniques,
1,633 billion units were produced in 1944 and
7,952 billion units in 1945. Penicillin became
the war's "wonder drug," and its remarkable
medical effects on infectious disease made
World War II different from any previous war. (http://www.lib.niu.edu/2001/iht810139.html)
Antibiotic crisis:
Antibiotics, the wonder drug of the 20th century, may become irrelevant in the very near future and as so called Superbugs develops immunity to medication.
Overuse of antibiotics may lead to superbug epidemic much sooner than is commonly thought.
A crisis looms. In the very near rapidly approaching future, the wonder drugs of the 20th century, antibiotics, may cease to be useful.
Antibiotics become a thing of the past: revolutionary research:
Just this month, researchers have announced a new treatment that will combat antibiotic resistance. This new synthesis, called PPMO *, offers a fundamentally different attack on bacterial infections.
PPMO are synthetic analogs of DNA or RNA that have the ability to silence the expression of specific genes.
The mechanism that PPMOs use to kill
bacteria is revolutionary,” said Bruce Geller, a professor of
microbiology in the OSU College of Science and lead author on the study.
“They can be synthesized to target almost any gene, and in that way
avoid the development of antibiotic resistance and the negative impacts
sometimes associated with broad-spectrum antibiotics.
