New Way for Antibiotic Resistance to Spread

Since we were just studying antibiotic resistance in lab,I chose this article. The article was found on Science Daily.The study was performed by Washington State University. The researchers used dairy calves to perform their experiments in the lab. The researchers focused on the antibiotic ceftiofur, a cephalosporin believed to be the helping drive for the proliferation of resistance in bacteria like Salmonella and E. coli. Ceftiofur has minimal impact on gut bacteria. Even though infections have been considerably lowered in the past 70 years, it has had a negative effect on many due to natural selection of drug-resistant microbes. The individuals who are infected with this organism find it difficult to get well fast. They tend to have long hospital stays and have a higher chance of death from minor issues. The researchers mixed cow dung, soil and urine infused with metabolized antibiotic. This recipe was used for antibiotic resistant bacteria. The urine killed off the normal E-Coli in the dung-soil mixture. The antibiotic resistant E-coli survived the soil mixture to recolonize in the calves gut through pasture, forage or bedding.

The main researcher stated " "If our work turns out to be broadly applicable, it means that selection for resistance to important drugs like ceftiofur occurs mostly outside of the animals, This in turn means that it may be possible to develop engineered solutions to interrupt this process. In doing so we would limit the likelihood that antibiotic resistant bacteria will get back to the animals and thereby have a new approach to preserve the utility of these important drugs." One possible solution they mention is to isolate and dispose of residual antibiotic after it is excreted from an animal but before it interacts with soil bacteria.

This article was interesting because many people nowadays have a drug- resistant microbe and it's most likely going to get worse as time goes on.