jfecju t1_j8vdl1n wrote on February 17, 2023 at 5:25 AM

Reply to comment by tornpentacle in A broad-spectrum synthetic antibiotic that does not evoke bacterial resistance by geoxol

Alcohol isn't really an antibiotic medication. If a doctor tried treating a staph infection with alcohol I think the patient would die before the bacteria.

I'm actually not being cynical. New classes of antibiotics is great as a stopgap, but the problem with antibiotics resistance will not be solved before the overuse and misuse stops. It's not a scientific problem, it's a legal and societal problem. Believing that it's possible to make an antibiotic medication without the risk of resistance means you won't work strategically to prevent resistance, which will render new classes of antibiotics useless within years

r2k-in-the-vortex t1_j8vlg6m wrote on February 17, 2023 at 6:53 AM

Life is not infinitely adaptable. Of course there can be an broad range antibiotic that is impossible to develop resistance against no matter how much it's spread around in places where it shouldn't be. Finding such an antibiotic of course is a separate matter. Not very hard to test its performance though, bacterial colonies can climb concentration gradients or they can't.

jfecju t1_j8vn7pc wrote on February 17, 2023 at 7:15 AM

Sure, life isn't infinitely adaptable. However, we need to keep the patient alive as well. Selectively killing off bacteria is the crux

Richmondez t1_j8vyrtl wrote on February 17, 2023 at 9:51 AM

Not infinitely no, but then we also don't have infinite compounds we can potentially use and the constraint that it not kill a patients cells means that it must be possible for some life to adapt to survive it meaning potentially the bacteria can. I'd say in practical situations it will be impossible to develop something bacteria can't adapt to.