FUTURE Seminar by Meltem Elitaş

"Antibiotics in the Past, Present and Future: Friends or Foes?"

Meltem Elitaş

Almost 1800 years ago, in Egypt, China, Rome and Serbia antibiotics have been used for the treatment of infections via mouldy bread and animal feces. In 1331 the disastrous mortal disease known as the Black Death, an epidemic of bubonic plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, spread across Europe from China by wild rodents and killed 50 million people. In1928 Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic, Penicillin, and its curative effect in various infectious diseases. In 1944, purification and mass production of penicillin was realized and antibiotics treatment of bacterial infections using penicillin started. In other words, the “golden era” of antibiotics was begun. Between 1940 and 1962 most of the antibiotic classes we used as medicine today were discovered. However, today there are very few antibiotics under development, and “multi-drug”, “extreme-drug” resistance are becoming more and more prevalent, making available antibiotics ineffective. 

In this talk, Meltem Elitaş will summarize the history of antibiotics, significant events contributed the development of microbiology and antibiotic discovery, shortly describe how antibiotics work, and briefly introduce the problems those we face today to tail antibiotic resistance and development of new drugs/antibiotics. Lastly, she will present antibiotic-related research that has been performed in her research group, supported by Marie Curie Program, EU.