Antibiotic resistance
Are we heading towards a future where infections are immune to treatment?
We have a major problem. Since the dawn of humanity, we have been locked in a battle with microscopic organisms, and just when we thought we were starting to win, they’re fighting back.
Bacteria cause some of the most devastating human diseases, from typhoid fever to tuberculosis, and until the 1920s we were utterly defenceless. But when Alexander Fleming ushered in the age of the antibiotic with his discovery of penicillin, we suddenly had a powerful weapon.
Antibiotics work by stopping bacteria from dividing or by killing them outright. Thanks to them we can treat infections that were once fatal, we can perform complex surgery, and we can mass-produce food on an unprecedented scale. But we have used them and used them and used them, and the bacteria have started to learn, with dangerous consequences.
These little organisms can replicate in a matter of hours, and each time they do they make tiny, accidental tweaks to their genetic code. Some tweaks aren’t useful, but very occasionally a mistake is made that helps one bacterium to outlast an onslaught of antibiotics for just a little longer than their neighbours.
When the course of antibiotics are finished, and all of the vulnerable bacteria are dead, this slightly stronger individual can carry on dividing, making a new colony that are all a little bit better at avoiding the effects of the drugs. And if this happens time after time you soon have a superbug on your hands.
Worse still, bacteria are able to share useful genes with their neighbours. And not just members of their own species. They carry useful snippets of genetic code in little rings of DNA called plasmids, which they can swap like trading cards, passing resistance on to others around them.
Using these tactics several strains of bacteria are now able to evade almost all of the antibiotics in our arsenal. We’re in the middle of a microscopic arms race, and the future of medicine is hanging in the balance.