• Question: With rising levels of superbugs, which have been estimated to surpass the number of deaths caused by cancer by 2050, will the discovery of new antibiotics act only act as a 'delay' as the bacteria are prone to evolve and develop resistance to the new antibiotics? If so what is the long term solution?

    Asked by anon-236370 to Lucy, David on 12 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Lucy Kelly

      Lucy Kelly answered on 12 Mar 2020:

      Great question. Potentially yes, bacteria are good at finding ways to become resistant to new antibiotics. The long term solution is increased investment into research to prevent the spread of antibiotic resistance, whether this is the development of new drugs or alternatives to antibiotics such as vaccines or phage therapy.

    • Photo: David Mark

      David Mark answered on 12 Mar 2020:

      As you said, new drugs will inevitably have resistance developed against them, and the question of long term solution is a really difficult one. Alongside new antibiotics which are one aspect of combating superbugs, there are a lot of strategies being investigated in parallel to help mitigate the problem. As Lucy said, vaccines and phage therapy are currently being investigated as strategies. Other examples of this are drugs that stop bacteria from making you sick without killing them – this is known as antivirulence.

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