Einstein International Journal Organization(EIJO)

For more than 60 years, antibacterial drugs have been regarded as the panacea to cure infections, whether or not their use is appropriate, and whether the infection was acquired in the community or in the hospital setting. Already in his Nobel Prize speech in 1945, Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, warned that bacteria could become resistant to these remarkable drugs. Indeed, the development of each new antibacterial drug has been followed by the detection of resistance to it.

The development of resistance is a normal evolutionary process for microorganisms, but it is accelerated by the selective pressure exerted by widespread use of antibacterial drugs. Resistant strains are able to propagate and spread where there is non-compliance with infection prevention and control measures.

In this context, the identification of new potential antimicrobial targets and/or the identification of new chemical entities as antimicrobial drugs are in great demand. To date, among the many possible approaches used to deal with antibiotic resistance is the use of antibiotic adjuvants that hit bacterial non-essential targets. In this review, we focus on the causes of anti-microbial resistance and how to overcome it.

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