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Previous Volume 360:83-84 January 1, 2009 Number 1 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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A golden era followed Fleming's discovery of penicillin, during which many novel classes of antibacterial drugs were developed. Most of these antibiotics, such as streptomycin and tetracycline, are derivatives of natural compounds released by microbes (often fungi or soil bacteria) to kill competitors found nearby in the environment. Initially, candidate antibiotics were identified in simple inhibition or killing screens with the use of sensitive target bacteria grown on laboratory culture media. (These are referred to as in vitro–grown bacteria.)

After several decades of success, the yield of natural antibiotics began to dry up, and pharmaceutical companies turned to new, more . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Source Information

From the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

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