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Antibiotic resistance the next AIDS crisis?


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The pharmaceutical industry has not prioritized developing new antibiotics for the last decades (causing companies with a business model focussed on antibiotics to lack funding) simply because other therapeutic areas have been perceived as more important. When multiresistant bugs become more prevalent it would be a pretty straightforward thing for the industry to shift focus and gear and start churning out new antibiotics, I believe. I am not trivializing the danger of multiresistant bacteria, people are dying from them everyday and it is definitely a growing concern (hence the WHO report), just that I don't see us losing the battle all yet.

What does worry me, though, is bio-terror from engineered viruses and synthetic biology. It is MUCH harder to fight viruses with antibiotics and MUCH easier to engineer viruses through synthetic biology to become more virulent. Fun fact: I talked about this at the trial lecture at my PhD dissertation.

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