Related topics from Britannicaantibiotic
chemical substance produced by a living organism, generally a microorganism, that is detrimental to other microorganisms.drug
Antibiotics are categorized as narrow-, broad-, or extended-spectrum agents. Narrow-spectrum agents (e.g., penicillin G) affect primarily gram-positive bacteria. Broad-spectrum antibiotics, such as ...
drug
Antineoplastic antibiotics (doxorubicin, daunorubicin, bleomycin, mitomycin, and dactinomycin) are derived from Streptomyces species. While they may have antibacterial activity, they are generally ...
medicine, history of
Penicillin is not effective over the entire field of microorganisms pathogenic to humans. During the 1950s the search for antibiotics to fill this gap resulted in a steady stream of them, some with a ...
drug
Isoniazid, ethambutol, pyrazinamide, and ethionamide are synthetic chemicals used in treating tuberculosis. Isoniazid, ethionamide, and pyrazinamide are similar in structure to nicotinamide adenine ...
medicine, history of
feed
Antibiotics have been used in livestock diets since the early 1950s. They and other growth stimulants are non-nutritive substances added to animal feeds to treat diseases, to improve the efficiency ...
drug
The penicillins have a unique structure, a beta-lactam ring, that is responsible for their antibacterial activity. The beta-lactam ring interacts with proteins in the cell responsible for the final ...
Physical Sciences
The growing public health problem caused by the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria was encouraging pharmaceutical chemists to search for new antibiotics. One common way of finding new ...
streptomycin
antibiotic synthesized by the soil organism Streptomyces griseus. Streptomycin was discovered by American biochemists Selman Waksman, Albert Schatz, and Elizabeth Bugie in 1943. The drug acts by ...
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