Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-1-2013
Publication Title
Future Medicinal Chemistry
Abstract
The importance of the human microbiome in health may be the single most valuable development in our conception of the microbial world since Pasteur's germ theory of the 1860s. Its implications for our understanding of health and pathogenesis are profound. Coupled with the revolution in diagnostics that we are now witnessing - a revolution that changes medicine from a science of symptoms to a science of causes - we cannot continue to develop antibiotics as we have for the past 80 years. Instead, we need to usher in a new conception of the role of antibiotics in treatment: away from single molecules that target broad phylogenetic spectra and towards targeted molecules that cripple the pathogen while leaving the rest of the microbiome largely intact.
Volume
5
Issue
11
First Page
1231
Last Page
1242
DOI
10.4155/fmc.13.79
ISSN
17568919
Rights
© 2013 Future Science Ltd.
Recommended Citation
Riley, Margaret A.; Robinson, Sandra M.; Roy, Christopher M.; and Dorit, Robert L., "Rethinking the Composition of a Rational Antibiotic Arsenal for the 21st Century" (2013). Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/bio_facpubs/225
Comments
Archived as published. Open access article.