WHAT IS THE

The word “antibiotic” was first used in 1943 to refer to a molecule made by a microbe that can inhibit or kill other microbes. Discovered in 1928, penicillin is produced by a fungus, but streptomycin and tetracycline are naturally made by soil bacteria for their own defense. While traces of tetracycline have been discovered in human remains dating from as early as 350, the antibiotic era is a 20th-century phenomenon. Meanwhile, many of the human pathogens have developed resistance to the original antibiotics and their successors, making them largely ineffective. Researchers are therefore in a race against the clock to find new antibiotics before pathogens gain the upper hand.