Do You Agree That Antibiotic Resistance Are Good Examples Of Evolution In Action?

[willbewhatiwill]

Bacteria & viruses soon become adapted to vaccines & antiviral drugs (or antibiotics for bacterium), as viruses & bacteria can mutate (& evolve) very rapidly.

These are examples of everyday evolution in action, since creatures with DNA evolved into various species (around 4 billion years ago) from primordial soup of amino acids & DNA bases.
Evolution is a fact of life, not merely theoretical speculation. Evolution & survival of the fittest for a habitat can be perceptible within days, like for antibiotic resistance. Drug resistance is due to mutation of organisms (like bacteria) to become more fit to pass on their genetic profiles to their offspring.

Those organisms that inadvertently evolved with ‘advantages’ characteristics for the specific niche they live in will produce more offspring. Antibiotic resistant bacterium are adapted to live & reproduce in environment of certain antibiotics.

Nature are hardy, even survival in deserts, polar ice caps at -50 C, hot boiling volcanic undersea vents are possible by mutation & evolution of the fittest through millions of years.

There should be adequate funding (by government, public & private organisations, etc) given to constantly develop new types of antibiotics, as bacterium & viruses evolve antibiotic resistance.

There are newer types of antibiotics are often administered intravenously in ITU/ICU (others are in development by pharmaceutical companies) – antibiotics like Clindamycin, Primaquine, Pentamidine, Trimetrexate, Dapsone, Atovaquone, Cefuroxime, Gentamicin, Teicoplanin, Clarithromycin, Tazocin, Ciprofloxacin, Ceftazidime, Vancomycin.

Mechanisms of current antibiotics includes:#

1. Antibiotics like Β-lactam antibiotics (like penicillin’s and cephalosporins) inhibit the synthesis of bactericidal effects by inhibition of enzymes needed for bacterial cell wall synthesis,
2. Sulphonamides antibiotics are a structural analogue of PABA & inhibit folate biosynthesis. PABA is required by bacteria, but not by humans, for folate biosynthesis. Human get their folate from the food they eat.
3. Antibiotics like tetracycline is selectively taken up bacteria and competes with the binding of tRNA to mRNA – hence interferes with during protein synthesises in bacterial ribosomes.

Anti-virals often act by suppressing reproduction of viruses RNA in host cells & budding off of new viruses from infected host cells.

Vaccine has eliminated smallpox, as well as at the threshold off eliminating polio, etc from the earth. Vaccines that are effective against the deadly disease of Ebola, AIDS, etc are being developed.

[scooping]

Good grief, again.

[Baldric]

Well I thought I did, but now you ask I'm not so sure.

[goodgoalie]

Sorry, but I really don't understand what you're trying to achieve with all these hugely long 'questions'.

[mikey4444]

Where is Sqad when we need him !

[jim360]

There are easily five or six separate topics in that lot, some of which relate to science and some to questions over funding priorities.

As for the lead question: yes, although with the caveat that maybe antibiotic resistance is a "small enough" change that it doesn't address the issue of speciation -- "when do adaptations turn the most recent generation into a "new" species?" -- that often forms the bulk of criticisms of evolutionary theory.

[scooping]

He's just culling stuff from the net, adding a few illiterate remarks, and sticking it out to us. Waste of our time - and his.

[woofgang]

I would suggest that the frequency, length and subject matter of these questions is verging on spam.

[scooping]

Woolgang: Deranged (not you!)

[Mamyalynne]

Puts a whole new spin on computer viruses for sure.

[sunny-dave]

As woofy says - and not just verging but battered, frittered and served with beans and chips.

I strongly suspect a PBM on the wind-up ...

[woofgang]

looks like somebody agreed with me.

[atalanta]

Opportunities for developing new antibiotics are not endless, no matter how much money is thrown at them. We may actually have reached the end of the road already. Completely new approaches may be called for, but may prove to be scientifically impossible.
However, look out for phages.

[ummmm]

Thank God for that!!

[Old_Geezer]

Yes it is a good example of evolution on the smaller scale. You're not seeing species splitting into two, but you are seeing modifications to an existing lifeform. But your post already covers the required response.

[Old_Geezer]

Phages are being looked at as the next step forward.

But I'd suspect that a lifeform only has resources to resist so much. Eventually a newly developed/evolved resistance turns out to have also dropped an older one. It's a case of working out the bug's present vulnerabilities and targeting them.

[willbewhatiwill]

scooping,

Unlike you, I do not cull stuff & plagiarise from the net. Speak for yourself. I take great exception to this very rude untrue accusation.

I write using my own knowledge, perceptions, understanding, take, opinions, sentence of my own. Like most graduates, I do not do plagiarism. I am capable of writing my own articles/dissertations.

NB
I was unable to reply you all day yesterday.