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Comment by notadoc | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised the "identified 11 priority areas in science" did not include antibiotic research, given that we are rapidly running out of antibiotics as resistance develops, all while virtually nobody is researching or developing new antibiotics.

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I know that antibiotic resistance is a problem but can you elaborate on how were rapidly running out right now? I got strep last week and they prescribed me amoxicillin (or penicillin if i was allergic) which are both quite old and established, and still prescribed today.

In short, it's evolution. Bacteria develop resistance when exposed to antibiotics. They lose their effectiveness.

This will give you a decent overview of antibiotic resistance:

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/antibiotic-resista...

If you like to watch documentaries, Frontline has a few on the topic, though each show is several years old now which is an eon to pathogens

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/hunting-the-nightmar...

(on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE4VzFz9PPo )

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/trouble-with-antibio...

No i know how antibiotic resistance works, i just haven't seen it have any effect on me or anyone I know, which makes the statement "we're rapidly running out" seem distant

We are running out of effective antibiotics. It's not the supply of amoxicillin that's the problem, but the rapid increase in bacterial strains that are resistant.

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