Riley Morris

Case Study Antibiotic Resistance

Biology 1090
3/3/20

Case study Antibiotic Resistance

In the article “New strategy in the fight against antibiotic resistance” they acknowledge
the fact that our antibiotics are no longer as effective as they once were. With a rise of
antibiotic resistance bacteria bioscience engineers from Belgium have researched and created a
new antibacterial strategy to prevent the bacteria from cooperating. When they are able to
work as a group, they can make a protective slime layer that protects the entire bacterial
community. Without them being able to work together to produce this biofilm they will be
weaker and easier to remove. After doing evolution experiments to test the population they
saw that “the bacteria, as a group, did not become resistant to our antibacterial substance,
while this did happen with antibiotics, and quickly so,"(Leuven 2020). They also noticed that
“those bacteria that were resistant to the new antibacterial substance became outnumbered by
non-resistant ones.” (Leuven 2020). It is believed that with this new strategy they can use new
antimicrobials as a form of preventive medicine. They would be able to put it in a pill or coat
the implants. Combined with antibiotics they would be much more effective, but as Steenackers
said “this concept can also be used to develop alternatives to antibiotics.”
This article is similar to the episode of frontline “Hunting the Nightmare bacteria” in a
few ways. The Houston hospital was shocked by the development of the KPC and they started
to look for new ways to treat it since their anti-biotics no longer were working. This is similar to
how the bioscience engineers started to research and investigate the resistant bacteria. Both
hospitals wanted to find a solution to this growing problem, we have known since the discovery
of penicillin that the biotics were becoming less effective and that the bacteria was becoming
resistant.
Many people don’t think about how the antibiotics work or the consequences of using
them. All that people are about is that they work now. Scientists have had to start researching
how to slow or prevent the spread of immune bacteria. Scientists need to work together and
share their research from all around the world. Scientists also need more funding to continue
the research and to get ahead of the issue. It is not addressed in my article but companies are
competing to develop the new drug to make a profit when they should be working with the
other companies sharing information to create the drug faster and save more lives.
My article could be related to the biological concept of evolution. Over all of the years
the bacteria have evolved so that it is resistant to our antibiotics and are harder to kill. In the
evolution studies the scientists did in Belgium they found that with their new strategy it would
slow down their ability to evolve and become resistant. The biotics are not changing bacteria so
that they are becoming resistant they are developing the resistant and if you look at their
evolutionary tree you can see how they are slowly developing resistance to different biotics at
different times.
Riley Morris
Case Study Antibiotic Resistance
Biology 1090
3/3/20

Reflection prompt 1. Did your article, or things you saw in your search
for articles, change the way you think about science?  Did you see
evidence of scientists actively engaged in public policy debates, and
were you surprised by their level of advocacy?

This article did change the way I think about science. I used to think
that everything could be solved by science but in this case, science is
creating the problem of bacteria that are immune to anything we throw
at it. I did see when scientists used evidence in public policy debates
and their level of advocacy did surprise me. They knew about the new
super bacteria and are trying to make it so we use antibiotics less.

Reflection prompt 2. Discuss how your article made connections to

another discipline, like business, government, politics, economics, or
humanities.  If it didn’t make any connections to other disciplines,
discuss a connection it could have made.

One connection that I saw was with business and how much money is
involved in the antibiotic industry and I also saw some politics and
how they are trying to make new laws to help reduce the amount of
antibiotics we are distributing.

Reflection prompt 3. Describe how the class as a whole has impacted

your views on science, the human body, and human impacts on the
planet.

Throughout this class I learned so many new things about the human
body that I don’t think I would have ever learned without it. There are
so many things all working together and if one thing doesn’t work then
the whole thing breaks down.
Riley Morris
Case Study Antibiotic Resistance
Biology 1090
3/3/20
Work Cited
KU Leuven. (2020, January 14). New strategy in the fight against antibiotic
resistance. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 3, 2020 from
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200114104027.htm