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Before resistance to antibiotics was noticed, the use of antibiotics had to become wide spread.
Member rating: No Rating | Words: | Submitted: Fri Oct 17 2003
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Before resistance to antibiotics was noticed, the use of antibiotics had to become wide spread. Antibiotics are used to treat many bacterial disorders. They do so by selectively affecting the bacteria while leaving the human cells alone. This is an important feature that antibiotics must possess, because they would do little good if they killed the patient's cells along with the bacteria. Antibiotics have many different mechanisms of attack on the bacterial cells. In order to understand the resistance by the bacteria, the mechanism of attack from the antibiotic must first be understood. Penicillin was the first antibiotic discovered in 1929. It was isolated from Penicillium notatum, a fungus. Penicillan is categorized as a ? -lactam because of the ? -lactam ring that is present in its chemical structure. It became commercially available in 1941 and was eventually isolated from P. chrysogenum since a better yield could be obtained. The...
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