The antibiotic resistance crisis, with a focus on the United States

Beginning with the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in the late 1920s, antibiotics have revolutionized the field of medicine. They have saved millions of lives each year, alleviated pain and suffering, and have even been used prophylactically for the prevention of infectious diseases. However, we have now reached a crisis where many antibiotics are no longer effective against even the simplest infections. Such infections often result in an increased number of hospitalizations, more treatment failures and the persistence of drug-resistant pathogens. Of particular concern are organisms such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium difficile, multidrug and extensively drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae and bacteria that produce extended spectrum β-lactamases, such as Escherichia coli. To make matters worse, there has been a steady decline in the discovery of new and effective antibiotics for a number of reasons. These include increased costs, lack of adequate support from the government, poor returns on investment, regulatory hurdles and pharmaceutical companies that have simply abandoned the antibacterial arena. Instead, many have chosen to focus on developing drugs that will be used on a chronic basis, which will offer a greater profit and more return on investment. Therefore, there is now an urgent need to develop new and useful antibiotics to avoid returning to the 'pre-antibiotic era'. Some potential opportunities for antibiotic discovery include better economic incentives, genome mining, rational metabolic engineering, combinatorial biosynthesis and further exploration of the earth's biodiversity.