LIFESCI 2H03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Penicillin, Ecolo, Streptomycin
14 Oct 2014
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Environmental degradation increasing scale to human activities. Different circles where the bacteria are not resistant to the antibiotic. What is an antibiotic? streptomycin refers only to drugs that kill or inhibit, fungi or viruses (very few as they are more complicated) first antibiotics were of natural origin. Antibiotics can be grouped by either their chemical structure or mechanism isolated from different types of microorganisms in this case from fungi of action. Often complex molecules which may posses different functionalities. E. g. penicillin, by a combination of all these classes multiple functions of cells can be targeted and impaired, getting rid of the pathogenic agents. Microbes are diverse and have been able to adapt to chemicals. The emergence of antibiotic resistance if we look at the dark ages: when infections occurred, there were no antibiotics that could releave or cure these microbial infections. Discovery of penicillin lead to understanding the modes of action and the potential of other antibiotics.
