New trends in antimicrobial development

The continual evolution of microbial resistance to the available classes of antibiotics poses a serious threat to the efficacy of traditional antibacterial therapy. Today, there are two main approaches that are being applied to discover better and more effective anti-infective agents against common as well as resistant pathogens: (a) the improvement of the "classical" antimicrobial agents by targeting the so called "resistance factors", and (b) the search of new anti-infective agents with novel modes of actions. This review will highlight the most relevant aspects of both of these approaches and some of the latest findings in the field of antimicrobial discovery.