What is the difference between chemotherapeutic agents and antibiotics

Kucers, A. Lowbury, E. Lancet , ii, Charles C. Thomas, Illinois. Phillips, I. In: Recent Advances in Infection 1 eds D. Reeves and A. Reeves, D. Privacy Policy Terms of Use. Access your subscriptions.

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In , the research team purified penicillin and reported its success as an antimicrobial agent against streptococcal infections in mice. Their subsequent work with human subjects also showed penicillin to be very effective.

Figure 3. Then they figured out how to purify it and showed its efficacy as an antimicrobial in animal and human trials in the early s. Figure 4. Selman Waksman was the first to show the vast antimicrobial production capabilities of a group of soil bacteria, the actinomycetes. In the early s, scientist Dorothy Hodgkin — , who studied crystallography at Oxford University, used X-rays to analyze the structure of a variety of natural products. In , she determined the structure of penicillin, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in Once the structure was understood, scientists could modify it to produce a variety of semisynthetic penicillins.

A semisynthetic antimicrobial is a chemically modified derivative of a natural antibiotic. The chemical modifications are generally designed to increase the range of bacteria targeted, increase stability, decrease toxicity, or confer other properties beneficial for treating infections.

Penicillin is only one example of a natural antibiotic. Also in the s, Selman Waksman — Figure 4 , a prominent soil microbiologist at Rutgers University, led a research team that discovered several antimicrobials, including actinomycin , streptomycin , and neomycin.

His work earned him the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in The actinomycetes are the source of more than half of all natural antibiotics [4] and continue to serve as an excellent reservoir for the discovery of novel antimicrobial agents.

Some researchers argue that we have not yet come close to tapping the full antimicrobial potential of this group. A scientist discovers that a soil bacterium he has been studying produces an antimicrobial that kills gram-negative bacteria. She isolates and purifies the antimicrobial compound, then chemically converts a chemical side chain to a hydroxyl group.

When she tests the antimicrobial properties of this new version, she finds that this antimicrobial drug can now also kill gram-positive bacteria. Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria esp.

Inhibits steps in murein peptidoglycan biosynthesis and assembly. Streptomyces lincolnensis. Gram-positive bacteria, Gram-negative bacteria not enterics, Neisseria, Legionella, Mycoplasma. Streptomyces mediterranei. Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Inhibits transcription eubacterial RNA polymerase. Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, Rickettsias. Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, Rickettsias Ehrlichia, Borrelia.