Penicillin, the first antibiotic, was discovered over 90 years ago and revolutionized medical potential. Before the advent of antibiotics, bacterial infections were a leading cause of death and the downfall of numerous surgical procedures. The capacity of antibiotics to enable patients to recover from severe infection and reduce the risk of infection of surgical wounds took the medical world by storm, leading to their routine use in both the management of disease and in prophylaxis.
The resultant widespread overuse of antibiotics, then, has led to many bacteria acquiring resistance to several of the most potent antibiotics available. This threatens the future of medical success as even the most efficacious antibiotics have been rendered inactive against life-threatening bacterial pathogens. Hundreds of thousands of lives are lost every year because of antibiotic-resistant infections.
Discovering and developing genuinely new antibiotics, therefore, requires challenging science methodologies and is time-consuming and expensive. The start-up company, Bactobio, is not deterred by these obstacles and is dedicated to discovering novel compounds, including antibiotics, from bacteria. Evaporation is a crucial step in their search methodology and has been streamlined using the SP Genevac EZ-2 centrifugal evaporator.