From the microscopic gladiator pit: Antibiotics vs resistance

The discovery of antibiotics in the early to mid-1900s has shaped modern medicine. From treating bacterial infections to preventing them during surgeries or cancer therapy, antibiotics are an essential pillar of human health. Beyond therapeutics for humans, our ability to mass produce dairy or meat products relies on the protective shield that antibiotics provide against communicable bacterial diseases. Yet, even as modern societies started to reap the benefits of antibiotics, the threat of antibiotic resistance (more generally, antimicrobial resistance, or AMR) had emerged. As early as 1940, resistance to penicillin in Escherichia coli was reported (Abraham and Chain 1940). Very soon after its use to treat bacterial infections in clinics, resistance was also reported from Staphylococcus (Rammelkamp and Maxon 1942). The same story repeated with every new antibiotic over the next 80 years (Hutchings et al. 2019). Today AMR is widespread and has been dubbed a silent pandemic.