Team:Sheffield/episode1
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THE PROBLEM |
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How did we get to such a drastic point with antibiotics?
We spoke to Dr. Milton Wainwright from the University of Sheffield, an expert in the history of antibiotic resistance told us about how the power of antibiotics has become so diminished since its first use in clinical medicine.
Video 1. An interview with Dr. Wainwright, discussing antibiotic resistance development and factors increasing the development of resistant bacterial strains.
The figure below shows incredibly rapid rate that bacteria develop antibiotic resistance to antibiotics as they have developed. This highlights the importance of using the remaining effective antibiotics we have properly.
Figure. 1 Timeline with year antibiotic drug introduced onto the market and observed antibiotic resistance bacterial strain. Above the timeine shows the type of antibiotic intrduced to market and below shows the specific antibiotic resistant strain in the associated colour.
References
Clatworth A.E., Pierson E, Hung D.T. Targeting virulence: a new paradigm for antimicrobial therapy. Nature Chemical Biology. 2007;3(9):541-548
As Dr. Wainwright explained, one of the factors contributing to this rapid development of antibiotic resistance is their overuse. So why then, in the face of this crisis, do we continue to overuse antibiotics?
Economics studies people’s behaviours under the constraint of scarce resources something which we all face. For our project, patients and doctors face the scarcity of antibiotics in terms of its effectiveness over the time. However, taking antibiotics in some cases does offer benefits, therefore decisions must be made about how much antibiotics should be consumed in total.
To offer a conceptual explanation to this phenomenon we turned to an Economics lecturer at the University of Sheffield, Dr. Jolian McHardy.
Video 2. A short talk by Dr. Jolian McHardy on the economics of misusing antibiotics.
PROJECT INTEGRATION
As explained by Dr. McHardy, externality is the result of an activity that affects others with a consequence that is not priced in the market. This is the basis of sub-optimal antibiotic usage.
Our device could alleviate the amount of externality produced by antibiotic consumption through providing information for more accurate prescribing decisions.
Where we fit in
We also choose to look at a biomarker, Lipocalin 2, that is produced by the body in response to bacterial infection rather than a biomarker from bacteria. This meant that our device would be able to detect all bacterial infections instead of being specific for a particular bacterial infection. A factor we hoped would give our device greater applicability and therefore impact.
