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Antibiotic resistance imposes a metabolic cost on bacteria. Take away the antibiotic, and resistance slowly declines. 50 years from now, we'll have a global s
by ocschwar 9y ago
Antibiotic resistance imposes a metabolic cost on bacteria.
Take away the antibiotic, and resistance slowly declines.
50 years from now, we'll have a global system that coordinates the rotation of antibiotics so we use them in lockstep.
- TTPrograms 9y ago> 50 years from now, we'll have a global system that coordinates the rotation of antibiotics so we use them in lockstep. That is really cool idea.
- danieltillett 9y agoPeople have tried this and it doesn't work. The problem is mobile genetic elements like plasmids and transposons. What happens is the antibiotic resistance genes cluster together and so the selection for one selects for all the others. Even if you go back to an antibiotic that hasn't been used for decades the resistance hangs around. Bacteria really are formable.
- autokad 9y agoif they were easy to kill, life would have never formed / progressed in the first place =)
- danieltillett 9y agoThe speed of evolution is proportional to the population size - there are way more bacteria than non-bacterial life and they are way ahead of us :)