History of the Antibiotic Era: Lessons Learned and Future Challenges

This paper summarizes the article "A brief history of the antibiotic era: lessons learned and challenges for the future," which provides an overview of the antibiotic era from its beginning to the present day, highlighting the rise of antibiotic resistance. The review discusses the discoveries of Paul Ehrlich and Alexander Fleming and the subsequent widespread use of antibiotics, which led to the development of antimicrobial resistance in various microbes. It emphasizes the need for novel strategies, such as modifying antimicrobial side chains and comparing metabolic pathways of commensals and pathogenic microbes, to address the rapid increase in antibiotic resistance. The review concludes that understanding the history of antibiotics provides valuable lessons for tackling future challenges, including global regulation of antibiotic use and the development of new microbial targets.

Running head: HISTORY OF THE ANTIBIOTIC ERA
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1
HISTORY OF THE ANTIBIOTIC ERA
Introduction:
With the growing prevalence of communicable disease, antimicrobials are highlighted as
the most successful form of chemotherapy in the history of medicine (Aminov, 2017). Although
history had shown a vast majority of the lives which was saved due to the discovery of
antibiotics, not all antibiotics were discovered in the lab, few of the antibiotic discovery was
observed from the ancient antibiotic exposures (Kuntz et al., 2016). These discoveries further
led to the development of novel strategies for newer antibiotics (Landecker, 2016). This paper
will provide a summary of the paper “A brief history of the antibiotic era: lessons learned and
challenges for the future” in the following paragraphs.
Summary:
The purpose of the study was to provide a brief overview of an antibiotic era from the
beginning of the era to the present situation to give a concise idea of the antibiotic resistance of
the microbes which causes the deadly chronic infection. Aminov, R. I. (2010) highlighted that
the modern antibiotic era started with the discovery of Paul Ehrlich and Alexander Fleming.
Paul discovered the idea of magic bullet which is used to treat sexually transmitted disease
caused by the spirochete Treponema palladium. On the other hand, Alexander Fleming
discovered penicillin from the antimicrobial activity of penicillium notum. The first hospital
used antibiotic Pyocyanase prepared by Emmerich and Löw from the Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
However, Aminov, R. I. (2010) stated that because of the extensive use of these antibiotics led to
the development of the antimicrobial resistance in a diverse range of microbes. Even before
extensive use of the penicillin, the observation suggested that the gram-positive microbes are
able to destroy beta-lactam ring by the production of beta-lactamase enzyme which further led to
the fact that bacteria can develop different resistance strategies. A considerate number of

2
HISTORY OF THE ANTIBIOTIC ERA
microbes changes their receptor or modify their DNA sequence to adopt resistance against
certain antibiotics. The mortality rate of the infection caused by the multidrug drug-resistant
microbes is extensively high. Therefore, according to Aminov, R. I. (2010), heavy modification
of the side chains of the majority of the antimicrobials which can target specific metabolic
pathway or biosynthesis can resolve the issues with the rapid increase of the antibiotic resistance
of the microbes. Therefore, Aminov, R. I. (2010) suggested that this problem can be resolved
by comparing the metabolic pathway of commensals and pathogenic microbes along with the
regulation of the antibiotics prescription by the government.
Conclusion:
Thus, it can be concluded that from the beginning of the microbial era, the researchers
went through several ups and downs for providing the world a valuable lesson that how
antimicrobial functions in the human body. During these studies, researchers highlighted that
because of extensive exposure of the antibiotics to the microbes along with the unique metabolic
pathway, a considerate number of microbes have developed antibiotic resistance. This problem
can be resolved by changing novel targets of the microbes along with global regulation of the
unnecessary use of the antibiotics around the globe.

3
HISTORY OF THE ANTIBIOTIC ERA
References:
Aminov, R. (2017). History of antimicrobial drug discovery: Major classes and health
impact. Biochemical pharmacology, 133, 4-19.
Aminov, R. I. (2010). A brief history of the antibiotic era: lessons learned and challenges for the
future. Frontiers in microbiology, 1, 134.
Kuntz, J. L., Smith, D. H., Petrik, A. F., Yang, X., Thorp, M. L., Barton, T., ... & Johnson, E. S.
(2016). Predicting the risk of Clostridium difficile infection upon admission: a score to
identify patients for antimicrobial stewardship efforts. The Permanente Journal, 20(1),
20.
Landecker, H. (2016). Antibiotic resistance and the biology of history. Body & Society, 22(4),
19-52.