Overcoming antibiotic resistance

Antibiotic resistance is a growing medical crisis, as disease-causing bacteria have developed properties that evade or overcome the toxic effects of many available drugs. More of these microbes are resistant to multiple medications, limiting physicians’ options to combat patients’ infections. As a result, a range of conditions – including pneumonia, bloodstream infections and gonorrhea – have become more dangerous and more expensive to treat, increasing healthcare costs by up to $20 billion annually.