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An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the treatment and prevention of such infections. They may either kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria. A limited number of antibiotics also possess antiprotozoal activity. Antibiotics are not effective against viruses such as the ones which cause the common cold or influenza; drugs which inhibit growth of viruses are termed antiviral drugs or antivirals rather than antibiotics. They are also not effective against fungi; drugs which inhibit growth of fungi are called antifungal drugs.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when microbes evolve mechanisms that protect them from the effects of antimicrobials. All classes of microbes can evolve resistance where the drugs are no longer effective. Fungi evolve antifungal resistance, viruses evolve antiviral resistance, protozoa evolve antiprotozoal resistance, and bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance. Together all of these come under the umbrella of antimicrobial resistance. Microbes resistant to multiple antimicrobials are called multidrug resistant (MDR) and are sometimes referred to as superbugs. Although antimicrobial resistance is a naturally occurring process, it is often the result of improper usage of the drugs and management of the infections.
Linezolid is an antibiotic used for the treatment of infections caused by Gram-positive bacteria that are resistant to other antibiotics. Linezolid is active against most Gram-positive bacteria that cause disease, including streptococci, vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The main uses are infections of the skin and pneumonia although it may be used for a variety of other infections including drug-resistant tuberculosis. It is used either by injection into a vein or by mouth.
Klebsiella pneumoniae is a Gram-negative, non-motile, encapsulated, lactose-fermenting, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped bacterium. It appears as a mucoid lactose fermenter on MacConkey agar.
Fusidic acid, sold under the brand names Fucidin among others, is an antibiotic that is often used topically in creams or ointments and eyedrops but may also be given systemically as tablets or injections.
As of October 2008, the global problem of advancing antimicrobial resistance has led to a renewed interest in its use.
The Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA) is a non-profit organization founded in 1981 by Stuart B. Levy (1938–2019), Professor of Medicine at Tufts University and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. APUA's mission is to strengthen society's defenses against infectious disease by promoting appropriate access and use to antimicrobial agents and controlling antimicrobial resistance on a worldwide basis. APUA has a network of affiliated chapters in over 50 countries, and conducts applied antimicrobial resistance research, education, capacity building and advocacy at the global and grassroots levels.
Multiple drug resistance (MDR), multidrug resistance or multiresistance is antimicrobial resistance shown by a species of microorganism to at least one antimicrobial drug in three or more antimicrobial categories. Antimicrobial categories are classifications of antimicrobial agents based on their mode of action and specific to target organisms. The MDR types most threatening to public health are MDR bacteria that resist multiple antibiotics; other types include MDR viruses, parasites.
Steffanie A. Strathdee is the Associate Dean of Global Health Sciences, Harold Simon Distinguished Professor at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Co-Director at the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics. She is known for her work on HIV research and prevention programmes in Tijuana.
Itzhak Brook is an adjunct professor of pediatrics and medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington DC. He specializes in infectious diseases. He is a past chairman of the Anti-infective Drug Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and chaired the Committee when AZT was approved for the treatment of HIV/AIDS in 1987.
Omadacycline, sold under the brand name Nuzyra, is a broad spectrum antibiotic medication belonging to the aminomethylcycline subclass of tetracycline antibiotics. In the United States, it was approved in October 2018, for the treatment of community-acquired bacterial pneumonia and acute skin and skin structure infections.
Plazomicin, sold under the brand name Zemdri, is an aminoglycoside antibiotic used to treat complicated urinary tract infections. As of 2019 it is recommended only for those in whom alternatives are not an option. It is given by injection into a vein.
Stuart Blank Levy was a researcher and physician at Tufts University. He was among the first to advocate for greater awareness of antibiotic resistance and founded the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics.
Prof. Dr. Victor Lim Kok Eow is a Malaysian physician and microbiologist, specializing on antimicrobial resistance and infectious diseases. He is Professor of Pathology and Pro Vice-Chancellor of the International Medical University in Kuala Lumpur. He is also a member of its Board of Governors.
Robert "Chip" T. Schooley is an American infectious disease physician, who is the Vice Chair of Academic Affairs, Senior Director of International Initiatives, and Co-Director at the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics (IPATH), at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine. He is an expert in HIV and hepatitis C (HCV) infection and treatment, and in 2016, was the first physician to treat a patient in the United States with intravenous bacteriophage therapy for a systemic bacterial infection.
The Stuart B. Levy Center for Integrated Management of Antimicrobial Resistance is a center for research and education focusing on pathogens that exhibit antimicrobial resistance located at Tufts University and Tufts Medical Center.
Alasdair Macintosh Geddes is Emeritus Professor of Infection at the University of Birmingham Medical School. In 1978, as the World Health Organization (WHO) was shortly to announce that the world's last case of smallpox had occurred a year earlier in Somalia, Geddes diagnosed a British woman with the disease in Birmingham, England. She was found to be the index case of the outbreak and became the world's last reported fatality due to the disease, five years after he had gained experience on the frontline of the WHO's smallpox eradication programme in Bangladesh in 1973.
Kerry L. LaPlante is an American pharmacist, academic and researcher. She is a Professor of Pharmacy and the Chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice at the University of Rhode Island, an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Brown University, an Infectious Diseases Pharmacotherapy Specialist, and the Director of the Rhode Island Infectious Diseases Fellowship and Research Programs at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Providence, Rhode Island.
Sulopenem (CP-70,429) is an antibiotic derivative from the carbapenem family, which unlike most related drugs is orally active. It was developed in Japan in the 1990s but has never been approved for medical use, however it has reached Phase III clinical trials on several occasions and continues to be the subject of ongoing research into potential applications, especially in the treatment of multiple drug resistant urinary tract infections.
John Charles Sherris was an English-American medical doctor, pathologist, and bacteriologist. He was the president of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) in 1983.
References
- ↑ "A Conversation with Helen Boucher, New Dean of Tufts School of Medicine and Chief Academic Officer of Tufts Medicine | Tufts Now". now.tufts.edu. 2022-10-21. Retrieved 2022-10-21.
- ↑ "Helen Boucher Named Interim Dean at Tufts University School of Medicine". 16 June 2021.
- 1 2 "Holy Cross to Host Second Annual Women in Science Day | Newsroom | College of the Holy Cross". news.holycross.edu.
- ↑ EDT, David H. Freedman On 05/15/19 at 7:10 AM (May 15, 2019). "Doctors are running out of effective drugs because of poor financial incentives to develop them". Newsweek.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - 1 2 Hall, William (April 9, 2018). Superbugs: An Arms Race against Bacteria. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674985070 – via Google Books.
- ↑ "Tufts Medical Center takes on life-threatening superbug infections". March 8, 2019.
- ↑ National Academy of Sciences, ed. (December 8, 2017). Combating Antimicrobial Resistance: A One Health Approach to a Global Threat: Proceedings of a Workshop. National Academies Press. ISBN 9780309466554 – via Google Books.
- ↑ "'Superbug' infections are on the rise, a new CDC report says". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
- ↑ "First New Tuberculosis Drug Approved in 50 Years". The Scientist Magazine®.
- ↑ Turmelle, Luther (December 27, 2019). "Former New Haven drugmaker seeks bankruptcy protection". New Haven Register.
- ↑ Jacobs, Andrew (December 25, 2019). "Crisis Looms in Antibiotics as Drug Makers Go Bankrupt". The New York Times.
- ↑ "Medscape Infectious Diseases Editorial Board". www.medscape.com.
- ↑ Microbiology, American Society for (July 1, 2014). "Editorial Board". Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. 58 (7): A3. doi: 10.1128/AAC.masthead.58-7 . PMC 4068516 – via aac.asm.org.
- ↑ "Board of Directors". www.idsociety.org.