Meghan May discusses antibiotic resistance on ā€˜²Ń±Źµž±·ā€™sā€™ ā€œMaine Callingā€

Meghan May

Meghan May, Ph.D., associate professor at the Ā鶹“«Ć½ā€™s College of Osteopathic Medicine, was a guest on an episode of ²Ń±Źµž±·ā€™s ā€œMaine Callingā€ that focused on antibiotic resistance.

The subject of so-called ā€œsuperbugsā€ has been widely publicized, most recently when a strain of bacteria resistant to the antibiotic Colistin caused an infection in Pennsylvania. May, an expert in infectious disease, was asked how these types of bacteria evolve to become resistant to antibiotics. ā€œThis is why physicians say you should use all of your antibiotics and you shouldnā€™t use them when not necessary,ā€ May said. ā€œThe reason for that ties straight into the concept of evolution. If you add antibiotics into a bacterial population you are effectively poisoning them. Those compounds do something destructive to those cells and whoever is left standing at the end of it is the one who is least effected by it. So if you leave any [bacteria] standing at the end of this, that is the population that is going to grow back and re-inhabit whatever space was abandoned.ā€ 

 

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