This book reviews more recent studies of antibiotics in Japan. It describes β-lactams and other antimicrobial agents according to the following categories: parenteral cephems and related compounds, oral cephalosporins, penems and carbapenems, monobactams, aminoglycosides, and macrolides.
Virtually everyone has taken antibiotics. They can be lifesavers -- and they can be useless. What are they? How are they used? And what happens as the effectiveness of antibiotics continues to decline? Antibiotics: What Everyone Needs to Know(R) examines the personal and societal implications of our planet's most important -- and frequently misused -- medications. In a question-and-answer format, it unpacks the most complicated aspects of this issue, including: How antibiotics are used (and overused) in humans, plants, and livestock; the causes and consequences of bacterial resistance to antibiotics; how the globalized world enables antibiotic resistance to spread quickly; and the difficult decisions ahead for both medical care and the food system. Grounded in the latest scientific research and crafted for general readers, Antibiotics: What Everyone Needs to Know(R) offers a clear-eyed overview of where we are, and what the future holds, as antibiotics lose their power.
This book reviews more recent studies of antibiotics in Japan. It describes β-lactams and other antimicrobial agents according to the following categories: parenteral cephems and related compounds, oral cephalosporins, penems and carbapenems, monobactams, aminoglycosides, and macrolides.
A chemocentric view of the molecular structures of antibiotics, their origins, actions, and major categories of resistance Antibiotics: Challenges, Mechanisms, Opportunities focuses on antibiotics as small organic molecules, from both natural and synthetic sources. Understanding the chemical scaffold and functional group structures of the major classes of clinically useful antibiotics is critical to understanding how antibiotics interact selectively with bacterial targets. This textbook details how classes of antibiotics interact with five known robust bacterial targets: cell wall assembly and maintenance, membrane integrity, protein synthesis, DNA and RNA information transfer, and the folate pathway to deoxythymidylate. It also addresses the universe of bacterial resistance, from the concept of the resistome to the three major mechanisms of resistance: antibiotic destruction, antibiotic active efflux, and alteration of antibiotic targets. Antibiotics also covers the biosynthetic machinery for the major classes of natural product antibiotics. Authors Christopher Walsh and Timothy Wencewicz provide compelling answers to these questions: What are antibiotics? Where do antibiotics come from? How do antibiotics work? Why do antibiotics stop working? How should our limited inventory of effective antibiotics be addressed? Antibiotics is a textbook for graduate courses in chemical biology, pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, and microbiology and biochemistry courses. It is also a valuable reference for microbiologists, biological and natural product chemists, pharmacologists, and research and development scientists.
Most of the antibiotics now in use have been discovered more or less by chance, and their mechanisms of action have only been elucidated after their discovery. To meet the medical need for next-generation antibiotics, a more rational approach to antibiotic development is clearly needed. Opening with a general introduction about antimicrobial drugs, their targets and the problem of antibiotic resistance, this reference systematically covers currently known antibiotic classes, their molecular mechanisms and the targets on which they act. Novel targets such as cell signaling networks, riboswitches and bacterial chaperones are covered here, alongside the latest information on the molecular mechanisms of current blockbuster antibiotics. With its broad overview of current and future antibacterial drug development, this unique reference is essential reading for anyone involved in the development and therapeutic application of novel antibiotics.
Antibiotics are truly miracle drugs. As a class, they are one of the only ones that actually cure disease as opposed to most drugs that only help relieve symptoms or control disease. Since bacteria that cause serious disease in humans are becoming more and more resistant to the antibiotics we have today, and because they will ultimately become resistant to any antibiotic that we use for treatment or for anything else, we need a steady supply of new antibiotics active against any resistant bacteria that arise. However, the antibiotics marketplace is no longer attractive for large pharmaceutical companies, the costs of development are skyrocketing because of ever more stringent requirements by the regulatory agencies, and finding new antibiotics active against resistant strains is getting harder and harder. These forces are all combining to deny us these miracle drugs when we need them the most. I provide a number of possible paths to shelter from this perfect storm.
Kucers’ The Use of Antibiotics is the definitive, internationally-authored reference, providing everything that the infectious diseases specialist and prescriber needs to know about antimicrobials in this vast and rapidly developing field. The much-expanded Seventh Edition comprises 4800 pages in 3 volumes in order to cover all new and existing therapies, and emerging drugs not yet fully licensed. Concentrating on the treatment of infectious diseases, the content is divided into four sections - antibiotics, anti-fungal drugs, anti-parasitic drugs, and anti-viral drugs - and is highly structured for ease of reference. Each chapter is organized in a consistent format, covering susceptibility, formulations and dosing (adult and pediatric), pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, toxicity, and drug distribution, with detailed discussion regarding clinical uses - a feature unique to this title. Compiled by an expanded team of internationally renowned and respected editors, with expert contributors representing Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, South America, the US, and Canada, the Seventh Edition adopts a truly global approach. It remains invaluable for anyone using antimicrobial agents in their clinical practice and provides, in a systematic and concise manner, all the information required when prescribing an antimicrobial to treat infection.
Antibiotics are among the most widely prescribed drugs in both human and veterinary medicine. Furthermore, they are used to protect plants against bacterial and fungal diseases, to decontaminate the shells of eggs, and to improve weight gain and feed conversion in a variety of food animals. Many antibiotics, in addition, have been esseptial tools in the elucidation of specific cellular functions. Genetic engineering, for example, would not be what it is today without the use of antibiotics in the selection of easily determined genetic markers. Production of antibiotics involves a diverse group of professionals: the fermentation technologist, the bioengineer, the extraction chemist. To im prove productivity, an understanding of the biosynthetic pathway and the mechanisms of its control is often useful. After the more than 40 years since the discovery of penicillin, the biol ogist is still unable to answer basic questions: Why are antibiotics produced by only a small number of microbial groups? What is the function of anti biotics in nature? When we started to teach our course on the science of antibiotics at the University of Pavia and the University of Milan, we realized that there was no book that presented the basic facts and concepts on all aspects of this diverse science. This book therefore arose out of our teaching need. Our experience in the discovery, development, and production of antibiotics has certainly imparted a practical nuance to this book.