The Shattered Soldier
Spammers
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2012
- Messages
- 1,161
An Overview of Antibiotics
When I found out the older post in this section was cut and pasted from Yahoo answers, I felt compelled to work on my own post that was extracted and sutured from my own brain. The previous answer was given by a registered nurse. I figured, why don’t we let another registered nurse take a shot at the answer?
Just like many inventions and discoveries, penicillin, the first antibiotic, was discovered when good old Alexander Fleming left his agar plate open and a piece of mold from a nearby cantaloupe landed on top of it. After the incubation period, Alex found that the bacteria on the plate grew everywhere except for an area around what he soon discovered was a mold called pennicillin. Luckily for society, he was well on his way towards figuring out what to do with this new information. I would have thrown the plate in the trash and started a new experiment, then you could say goodbye to your little over-prescribed pacifiers and die. But Alex was a nice guy with a curious mind.
Some of today’s antibiotics are synthesized, but most come from the waste products of living microorganisms. Many different kinds are used, but bacteria are the most common. This is probably because of their easy to modify, ring shaped DNA, and that they are so abundant that they have their own kingdom in taxonomy. So what happens is that they are grown in the most favorable growth media under ideal conditions, allowed to excrete a significant amount of metabolic byproducts, then the byproducts are collected and prepared to be used as antibiotics.
Here is the problem, bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics, so it is up to science to find another antibiotic that will kill or stop these increasingly common pests. So what can they do? They have three options: Select from millions of bacteria that may, by educated guess, excrete the vaccine that kills the resistant bacteria, synthesize an antibiotic, or genetically modify a previously effective bacteria.
It’s very difficult to modify the DNA of a human, mostly because of it’s shape. It’s put together like a double staircase, try not to screw that one up. Bacteria, on the other hand, have a simple ring that is quite a less daunting task for scientists to modify. I saw a video of a scientist performing the procedure, it took about a half hour. If modified correctly, the bacteria will produce a byproduct that is effective against the resistant one.
Now let’s say that we were going to pick a bacterium out of the millions to make the right antibiotic. What would the criteria be besides being able to kill or maim the target disease? Well, it has to grow and multiply quickly. It has to produce substantial amounts of its byproducts or they will not be able to be isolated from the bacteria itself. Finally, it has to be able to produce its byproducts in a short period of time. We don’t have all day here, these drug lords want a cure and they want their logo on it. So a lot of time is spent finding the best growing conditions, testing the bacteria, and testing the antibiotic.
Resistance can be considered a form of evolution on speed. Where multicellular organisms such as ourselves take years to evolve, with the exception of those who don’t believe in it (they never evolve). Single celled organisms, such as bacteria, are capable of evolving within hours to minutes. Having a simple, ring-like DNA structure, a disruption in the environment is capable of disrupting the nucleotide order of the organism. Such a disruption could be the introduction of an antibiotic to the environment. Because of this disruption, some bacteria become different from the others. A select few of these bacteria, by pure chance, become resistant to the antibiotic. As the other bacteria die off, these resistant bacteria proliferate. Due to the lack of competition for food, they are able to multiply and grow at a fairly rapid pace causing the host organism’s illness to continue or even get worse. Since the bacteria have evolved past the susceptibility of a particular antibiotic, another must be used in order to kill them. Unfortunately, this doesn’t usually happen until they have spread to other people through various chains of disease transmission.
It’s been said that bacteria have been mutating at such a rapid pace that there will come a day where antibiotics will no longer work at all. A scrape on the knee could become MRSA. A sinus infection could spread to your entire respiratory tract and kill you. A urinary tract infection could carry dire consequences for your bladder, kidney, and eventually your blood.
There are many more factors in resistance such as bacteria who become infected by viruses and develop unusual capabilities , or what I call "super-powers" such as expelling toxic chemicals. Or why the over-prescribing of certain antibiotics enable resistance, I can't remember. Yes, most of this was from memory, and my last microbiology class was over six years ago. So please, feel free to add to anything or correct any inaccuracies I may have stated in this post. I’ve used quite a large amount of drugs since then so I won’t take offense at any corrections. But I wouldn’t post if I believed that my information was fundamentally flawed.
When I found out the older post in this section was cut and pasted from Yahoo answers, I felt compelled to work on my own post that was extracted and sutured from my own brain. The previous answer was given by a registered nurse. I figured, why don’t we let another registered nurse take a shot at the answer?
Just like many inventions and discoveries, penicillin, the first antibiotic, was discovered when good old Alexander Fleming left his agar plate open and a piece of mold from a nearby cantaloupe landed on top of it. After the incubation period, Alex found that the bacteria on the plate grew everywhere except for an area around what he soon discovered was a mold called pennicillin. Luckily for society, he was well on his way towards figuring out what to do with this new information. I would have thrown the plate in the trash and started a new experiment, then you could say goodbye to your little over-prescribed pacifiers and die. But Alex was a nice guy with a curious mind.
Some of today’s antibiotics are synthesized, but most come from the waste products of living microorganisms. Many different kinds are used, but bacteria are the most common. This is probably because of their easy to modify, ring shaped DNA, and that they are so abundant that they have their own kingdom in taxonomy. So what happens is that they are grown in the most favorable growth media under ideal conditions, allowed to excrete a significant amount of metabolic byproducts, then the byproducts are collected and prepared to be used as antibiotics.
Here is the problem, bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics, so it is up to science to find another antibiotic that will kill or stop these increasingly common pests. So what can they do? They have three options: Select from millions of bacteria that may, by educated guess, excrete the vaccine that kills the resistant bacteria, synthesize an antibiotic, or genetically modify a previously effective bacteria.
It’s very difficult to modify the DNA of a human, mostly because of it’s shape. It’s put together like a double staircase, try not to screw that one up. Bacteria, on the other hand, have a simple ring that is quite a less daunting task for scientists to modify. I saw a video of a scientist performing the procedure, it took about a half hour. If modified correctly, the bacteria will produce a byproduct that is effective against the resistant one.
Now let’s say that we were going to pick a bacterium out of the millions to make the right antibiotic. What would the criteria be besides being able to kill or maim the target disease? Well, it has to grow and multiply quickly. It has to produce substantial amounts of its byproducts or they will not be able to be isolated from the bacteria itself. Finally, it has to be able to produce its byproducts in a short period of time. We don’t have all day here, these drug lords want a cure and they want their logo on it. So a lot of time is spent finding the best growing conditions, testing the bacteria, and testing the antibiotic.
Resistance can be considered a form of evolution on speed. Where multicellular organisms such as ourselves take years to evolve, with the exception of those who don’t believe in it (they never evolve). Single celled organisms, such as bacteria, are capable of evolving within hours to minutes. Having a simple, ring-like DNA structure, a disruption in the environment is capable of disrupting the nucleotide order of the organism. Such a disruption could be the introduction of an antibiotic to the environment. Because of this disruption, some bacteria become different from the others. A select few of these bacteria, by pure chance, become resistant to the antibiotic. As the other bacteria die off, these resistant bacteria proliferate. Due to the lack of competition for food, they are able to multiply and grow at a fairly rapid pace causing the host organism’s illness to continue or even get worse. Since the bacteria have evolved past the susceptibility of a particular antibiotic, another must be used in order to kill them. Unfortunately, this doesn’t usually happen until they have spread to other people through various chains of disease transmission.
It’s been said that bacteria have been mutating at such a rapid pace that there will come a day where antibiotics will no longer work at all. A scrape on the knee could become MRSA. A sinus infection could spread to your entire respiratory tract and kill you. A urinary tract infection could carry dire consequences for your bladder, kidney, and eventually your blood.
There are many more factors in resistance such as bacteria who become infected by viruses and develop unusual capabilities , or what I call "super-powers" such as expelling toxic chemicals. Or why the over-prescribing of certain antibiotics enable resistance, I can't remember. Yes, most of this was from memory, and my last microbiology class was over six years ago. So please, feel free to add to anything or correct any inaccuracies I may have stated in this post. I’ve used quite a large amount of drugs since then so I won’t take offense at any corrections. But I wouldn’t post if I believed that my information was fundamentally flawed.
Last edited by a moderator:
