• Question: What drugs can you name off the top of your head and what do they do.

    Asked by NobeliumHoliumMolybdenum to Sudhin, Sergio, Katie, Frances, Diarmuid, Aoife on 18 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Katie Fala

      Katie Fala answered on 18 Nov 2019:

      Beta lactam antibiotics like penicillin – they stop bacteria from making their cell wall.
      Quinolone antibiotics like ciprofloxacin – they stop bacteria from duplicating their DNA
      Aminoglycoside antibiotics like streptomycin – they stop bacteria from making the proteins that they need to survive.

      Bacteria can become resistant to any of the above (or even all of them at once) – antibiotic resistance is a big problem facing human society.

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