L-34

Question 1

What were early treatments for infectious diseases before antibiotics?

Answer 1

Highly toxic “medicines” that were more harmful than the actual disease

Question 2

What was the first selective antibiotics

Answer 2

• Salvarsan or compound 606

Question 3

Who discovered penicillin?

Answer 3

Alexander Fleming

Question 4

What bacterium was first observed to be destroyed by penicillin?

Answer 4

Staphylococcus

Question 5

How does penicillin (and other antibiotics) work?

Answer 5

by interfering with normal formation of the bacterial cell wall by inhibiting the formation of peptidoglycan cross links

Question 6

What different bacterial cell components can can other classes of antibiotics target?

Answer 6

• inhibition of protein synthesis
• disruption of cytoplasmic membrane
• inhibition of general metabolic pathway
• inhibition of DNA/RNA synthesis
• inhibition of pathogen attachment/ entry to host cell

Question 7

When penicillin was first used at the coconut club what dosage were patients given? What dosage is in a pill now?

Answer 7

• 2.5mg

- 500mg

Question 8

What is the process of spreading antibiotic resistance?

Answer 8

• a proportion of the bacterial population gains a mutation that causes it to gain resistance to antibiotic X
• when treated with antibiotic X only bacteria with the mutation survive
• these bacteria then multiply, passing on the resistant trait
• these mutated bacteria will survive subsequent encounters with antibiotic X

Question 9

What is an example of a mutation causing antibiotic resistance?

Answer 9

Possession of a plasmid carrying the beta lactamase gene which is for an enzyme produced by bacteria used to destroy penicillin

Question 10

How does antibiotic resistance spread so fast?

Answer 10

Horizontal gene transfer

Question 11

What is increasing the spread of antibiotic resistance?

Answer 11

• 80% of all antibiotics are givin to livestock and that has become necessary to speed growth and prevent diseases
• livestock manure used as firstiliser encourages the proliferation of antibiotic resistant bacteria
• 50% of all antibiotics given to humans are prescribed unnecessarily or used inappropriately
• consumption of livestock and grain treated with antibiotics significantly increases the spread of resistance in bacteria

Question 12

How many deaths per year will superbugs cause by 2050?

Answer 12

10 million

Question 13

Why is no one producing antibiotics anymore?

Answer 13

• expensive process
• lose function within a few years
• people that need them often cannot afford them
• ## people that can afford them need them only a few times in their lives (not profitable)

Question 14

How can we reduce antibiotic resistance?

Answer 14

• decrease utilisation of antibiotics (improve hygeine, restrict use in agriculture)
• improve diagnostics of resistant bacteria ( to reduce/ contain outbreaks)
• indentifying new targets in bacteria for antibiotics (harder for them to build resistance)
• develop combination therapies ( taking in combination with molecules that block resistance mechanisms)