Antibiotics were the first example of something close to a panacea in treating bacterial infections. Since the middle of the 20th century, their use has expanded, with more complex preparations than the original penicillin being developed over the years, increasing efficacy and decreasing side effects. To learn more about the history of the emergence and impact of antibiotics, you can pay for essay and get a comprehensive paper on this topic.
At the same time, already after half a century, antibiotics have turned from a panacea into one of the main threats to global health. It would be more accurate to say that it is not the antibiotics themselves but what has emerged due to their widespread use, namely antibiotic-resistant bacteria. According to WHO data for 2023, about 4.95 million deaths related to antimicrobial resistance are reported annually.
The Problem of Antibiotic Resistance
Antibiotics have come to the rescue of humankind, helping to almost completely eliminate fatal pneumonia and other bacterial infections that were previously untreatable. Still, at the same time, the lack of awareness of the mechanisms of antibiotics among ordinary people has led to the fact that the use of antibiotics has become largely uncontrolled. Patients self-administered pills for viral infections when the drug was ineffective, so, basically, for any symptoms, antibiotics were the first option for many years. Over the years, this has resulted in bacteria that survived the drugs mutating and becoming resistant. In simple words, many bacteria simply do not respond to antibacterial drugs. The use of antibiotics in agriculture has also become a huge problem, with farmers using huge doses of the drugs to keep animal populations in check. WHO has listed antibiotic resistance as one of the top 10 threats to global health in 2019.
Moreover, according to the most unfavorable forecasts, if the situation with the control of antibiotic use does not change, the number of deaths from antibiotic-resistant infections could reach 10 million per year by 2050. Unfavorable forecasts forced scientists to develop new methods of treating bacterial infections and recall old techniques that had been forgotten but, in the new conditions, have become relevant again, and one of these techniques is phage therapy.
Phage Therapy
Phage therapy is a method that uses bacteriophages – viruses that selectively destroy bacteria. The history of phage therapy dates back to 1919, when one of the discoverers of bacterial viruses, Felix d’Hérelle, used a phage preparation to combat chicken cholera. Afterward, the technology was studied, but antibiotics remained the drug of choice due to the more complicated application procedure, and phage therapy was seen as a last resort in treating bacterial infections. With the increased number of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the approach to this technique has been reopened and is relevant.
One of the main advantages of phages is their ability to kill only the targeted bacteria without affecting the body’s healthy microflora. However, phage therapy requires individualizing the phage to a specific bacterial strain, which can slow down the treatment process. Research indicates that properly selecting phages can be an effective alternative to antibiotics.
CRISPR Technologies
CRISPR is an acronym for clustered, regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. Originally developed for genome editing, CRISPR-Cas9 technology can also be used to fight antibiotic-resistant infections. This Nobel Prize-winning discovery is based on the principle of so-called genetic scissors.
CRISPR is a section of genetic code with a rather interesting structure and properties: in fact, it is a component of the simple immune response inherent in bacteria and archaea. When scientists began to carefully analyze CRISPR, they noticed that certain pieces of the genetic code matched the already known sequences of various viruses. It is thought that bacterial cells themselves incorporate parts of viral DNA into their own as a memory of infection. CRISPR saves a “history of disease” for the cell so that its molecular mechanisms will immediately recognize pathogenic DNA and destroy it when it meets a virus next time. If the virus infected the cell again, the complex would recognize its genetic code thanks to the existing RNA example, and in response, the Cas9 protein would cut the viral DNA, neutralizing it before it could do any damage.
It sounds complicated enough, but in simple terms, scientists are on the verge of a discovery that could theoretically help treat genetic diseases, cancer, and antibiotic-resistant infections by changing the genome.
Probiotics and Microbiome Therapy
Probiotics, prescribed with antibacterial drugs, preserve the intestinal microflora, which is responsible for the body’s overall immunity. However, if they were used mostly earlier to eliminate the side effects of antibacterial therapy, now it is a full-fledged medium for studying the fight against bacterial infections. For example, Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium strains effectively inhibit the growth of bacteria such as Clostridium difficile, which often cause infections after antibiotic treatment.
Microbiome therapy has also been shown to be effective in fighting antibiotic-resistant infections. This method restores healthy microflora in the gut and helps the body deal with antibiotic-resistant infections on its own. As with phage therapy, this is still a last resort, as the procedure itself is quite complex, and finding donors takes time.
Antibacterial Peptides
Antibacterial peptides (AMPs) are short chains of amino acids that can disrupt bacterial membranes. Studies in 2023 have shown that AMPs can be effective against resistant pathogens. Unlike traditional antibiotics, these peptides act at the physical level by disrupting the cellular structures of bacteria and preventing them from multiplying.
Although AMPs are considered promising infection-fighting agents, problems associated with their instability in the body exist. Nevertheless, scientists continue to work on developing more stable and effective forms of peptides that could replace antibiotics in the future.
Conclusion
Antibiotic resistance is a global threat that requires immediate action. New therapies such as phage therapy, CRISPR technologies, probiotics, and antibacterial peptides offer new perspectives on combating this problem. Although each of these methods requires further research and refinement, their implementation could significantly reduce the number of deaths associated with antibiotic-resistant infections and save millions of lives.
