Antibiotic resistant bacteria have become a major concern for many public health officials. Widespread use of antibiotics has created an evolutionary pressure on infectious bacteria to develop immunity to these medications. The result is an increase in antibiotic resistant microbes, particularly in settings where antibiotics are commonly used, such as hospitals. One strategy public health officials have devised to counteract these infectious microbes is "antibiotic cycling” where specific antibiotics are withdrawn from the market for a period of several years, then reintroduced as another antibiotic is withdrawn.     How would this strategy help limit antibiotic resistance? A. It is impossible for a bacterium to maintain resistance to two antibiotics at once B. When a given antibiotic is not in use, it is an evolutionary disadvantage to carry the unneeded gene C. If a specific antibiotic is removed from the market it is possible to substitute with a related antibiotic such as penicillin and amoxicillin D. By removing certain antibiotics from the market, it limits the chance that the resistance genes would be involved in horizontal gene transfer

Assume you work at the local hospital in your home town.  Suddenly you notice that 10% of your patients are having serious staphylococcal infections.  None of these patients were admitted for having a staphylococcal infection, and we assume that all standard infectious control procedures are being followed (hand washing, use of gloves and masks, etc.).  Remember that a small percentage of bacteria do evade even the most scrupulous of infectious disease control procedures.  How could you use what you have learned in this week’s laboratory to solve the problem? How could you find out where the infection originated?  What steps would you need to take? How could you determine definitively what organism is causing these patients’ infections?   How could you determine how to treat these patients?  Once you determine the source of the infection, what ethical issues, if any, are involved here?  What should you do to protect the privacy and welfare of the patients as well as avoiding conduct…

What actions described in the video do you think are similar to the COVID-19 threat today and why? What efforts by the government or other officials actually made the 1918 pandemic worse? Are any of these same actions occurring today? What is most shocking to you about the events described in the video about the 1918 pandemic? Are any of those shocking events now occurring in a similar way in response to COVID-19?

You are designing a phage therapy for a cystic fibrosis patient with an multi-antibiotic resistant Mycobacterium infection. The Mycobacterium infection is preventing the patient from taking immunosuppressant drugs that are needed for a successful lung transplant. The idea is that introducing the right phage to the patient will kill the Mycobacterium cells and allow the patient to go on immunosuppressant drugs that will ensure the new lung is not rejected by the body.  You need to find a phage that infects the Mycobacterium you isolated from the patient. Which TWO options have the highest chance of success?   Group of answer choices 1.Isolating new phage from soil using a plaque assay with the Mycobacterium isolate 2.Choosing likely candidates from analysis of phage 16S rRNA phylogeny in the tree of life 3.Obtaining a very well-studied phage, such as T4 bacteriophage, that specifically targets E. coli 4.Screening a colleague's library of known Mycobacterium phages for phage that…

Which of these antibiotics would do the best job as a broad spectrum antibiotic?

How does the antibiotic resistance mechanism using drug efflux pumps works? What could the medical community do to respond to this resistance mechanism to overcome it?

step 1 Staphylococcus aureus is a bacteria, that is now resistant to commonly used antibiotics, and it is now resistant to the antibiotic methicillin (narrow spectrum beta lactam class). step 2 Describe the physiological mechanism used by individual bacteria to resist the antibiotic listed in above of this Thought Question. For example, the mechanism could be modification of drug, modification of target, prevention of drug penetration, overproduction of target, or target mimicry. (This means that you must choose a strain of bacteria that we know the characteristic of the bacteria that allows the bacteria to be resistant.)

The epidemiological or disease triangle is a model of disease causation that proposes three factors contribute to an outbreak – an agent that causes the disease, a susceptible host, and an environment that brings the host and agent together. Some general changes within these three factors that may cause an infectious disease to emerge include:     A. changes in populations or behavior of reservoir hosts or intermediate hosts   B. microbial genetic mutation and viral genetic recombination or assortment    C. environmental factors such as an increase in precipitation   D. all of the above    E. none of the above

Which link in the chain of infection is the intervention described below meant to break? "Quarantine is used to keep someone who might have been exposed to COVID-19 away from others. Quarantine helps prevent spread of disease that can occur before a person knows they are sick or if they are infected with the virus without feeling symptoms. You have been in close contact with someone who has or is suspected to have COVID-19 so it is important for you to stay home, separate yourself from others, and monitor your health." http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/ acd/docs/COVHomeQuarantine.pdf Susceptible host Infectious agent O Portal of entry O Means of transmission

Questions 40 and 42.