Book review: Antibiotics: Current Innovations and Future Trends

Abstract

The 'golden age' for antibiotic discovery, from 1940 until the early 1970s, ushered in a new era in human- and animal-health and the associated dramatic increase in human life expectancies. Indeed, the possibility of eradicating infectious disease seemed feasible. However, it soon became apparent that microorganisms wouldn't be defeated so easily. Their weapon: antibiotic resistance. Today, microbial antibiotic resistance is rapidly exhausting the supply of effective compounds, and this makes the possibility of a global public health disaster seem likely. The urgency of this situation has spaw. Contributors; Current Books of Interest; Preface; 1: What is an Antibiotic?; Introduction; The etymology of the word antibiotic; Disinfectants and related compounds; Chemotherapeutic agents, magic bullets and selective toxicity; The long shadow of Selman Waksman and synthetic antibiotics; Antibiotic resistance and the emergence of 'antibacterial' as a synonym for 'antibiotic'; Selective toxicity, lexicography and the evolving definition of antibiotic; Why worry about definitions?; Summary; 2: Main Applications of Antibiotics; Introduction. Antibiotics for treatment of infectious diseasesFurther discussion; Conclusion and future perspectives; 3: Microorganisms Producing Antibiotics; The antibiotic producers and antibiotic functions; The numbers of antibiotic-producing microbes; Chemical diversity; Biodiversity; The way ahead; Epilogue; 4: The Need for New Antibiotics; The antibiotic crisis; Antibiotic resistance; Emergence of new diseases; Lack of new drugs; Why drug discovery has dropped; Lack of new antibiotics; Natural products versus synthetics as drugs; Possible solutions to the problem; 5: Tackling Antibiotic Resistance. IntroductionPreparation of new vaccines against resistant bacterial strains; Search for new antibiotics; Newly approved antibiotics and antibiotics in the pipeline; Search for new antibiotics from non-traditional or less traditional sources; Microbial genome sequences -- search for genes specifying biosynthesis of antibiotics; Forgotten antibiotics to be revitalized; New antibiotic targets; Discussion and conclusions; 6: Eradication of Dormant Pathogens; Persisters and infectious disease; Mechanisms of persister formation; Persister eradication; 7: Toxicity of Antibacterial Drugs. Class effectsHas genomics been misleading?; Collateral damage; What is 'safe enough'?; Into the future: prophylaxis and precision medicine; Conclusions; 8: Overuse of Antibiotics: Non-medical Applications; Introduction; Antibiotic resistance -- evolution and drivers; Problem: overuse of antibiotics in agriculture; Overuse of antibiotics leads to environmental contamination; Antibiotic overuse in international travel and trade; Conclusion; 9: Antibiotics for Emerging and Re-emerging Diseases; Introduction; Antiparasitic antibiotics; Antiviral antibiotics; Anti-pathogenic E. coli antibiotics. Conclusions10: Endophytes as a Potential Source of New Antibiotics; Introduction; Endophyte definition; Distribution in the plant; Biological properties; Pharmaceutical importance of endophytes; Endophytes as producers of the same metabolites as the host plant; Antibiotics from endophytic microorganisms; Potential agricultural uses of endophytic secondary metabolites; Volatile organic compounds are potentially important for biocontrol and control of fruit post-harvest diseases; Compounds with antibiotic activity chemically derived from natural endophytic secondary metabolites.