Bacteria Can Evolve Resistance to Drugs Before Those Drugs Are Used
A new study turns the history of MRSA on its head.
In 1928, after returning from a countryside holiday and examining a stack of petri dishes that he had left in the sink, British chemist Alexander Fleming discovered a new type of bacteria-killing mold. From that mold, he isolated a chemical called penicillin, and ushered in the modern antibiotic era—an age when humans could finally keep infectious diseases at bay. But in 1945, two years after penicillin became widely used and shortly.
