The future cure of infectious disease could be in ourselves!
The Howell Foundation hosted its first North County event with key note speaker Janelle Ayers, Ph.D from the Salk Institute, who walked us through the history of the development of antibiotic resistance and how we fight disease in the twenty first century. She is currently researching the pathways to winning the war against antibiotic resistance in bacterial infections. In the continuous fight to beat infectious disease, history has shown us that the use of antibiotics will kill the infection, along with the healthy bacteria that might keep us from fighting the infection. Bacteria have genetic mutations that are resistant to antibiotics, and we, in turn, just keep on developing antibiotics to rid new strains of bacteria. We are running out of of options in antibiotic development to beat infectious disease. And the cycle continues... So the question still remains: will our bodies be able to fight infectious disease on their own? Her answer is ...