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State‐of‐the‐art therapeutic medical countermeasures for bacterial threat agents
Author(s) -
Stundick Melissa V.,
Metz Matthew,
Sampath Aruna,
Larsen Joseph C.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
drug development research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.582
H-Index - 60
eISSN - 1098-2299
pISSN - 0272-4391
DOI - 10.1002/ddr.20462
Subject(s) - antibiotics , antibiotic resistance , bacillus anthracis , biology , bacteria , microbiology and biotechnology , genetics
In the event of another bioterrorism attack with a bacterial agent, antibiotics will be critical medical countermeasures to have in the US Strategic National Stockpile. Conventional antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, and streptomycin are generally considered a first line of defense against organisms such as Bacillus anthracis and Yersinia pestis . However, antibiotic resistance is a growing public health threat, especially among potentially life‐threatening pathogens; it is possible that threat agent bacteria could naturally evolve, or be engineered to express, antibiotic resistance against commonly used antibiotics. At the same time that the need for novel or improved antibiotics is becoming urgent, the antibiotic development pipeline has slowed, with only two completely new classes of antibiotics having been introduced over the past 40 years. In the present work, we review the current antibiotic pipeline, including novel, innovative approaches being considered to target bacteria or virulence, with a focus on those compounds that have been tested for activity against threat agent bacteria. We opine on the benefits and challenges inherent in certain mechanisms of action and stress that regulatory, policy, and technical strategies need to be revisited in order to incentivize industry to continue antibiotic development. Drug Dev Res 72: 361–378, 2011.© 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.