Antibiotic resistance, or how bacteria become resistant

Antibiotic resistance is a major public health issue. Understanding how resistance works and how bacteria become resistant is crucial in helping us maintain the effectiveness of antibiotics against bacteria.

Antibiotics are drugs used to fight infections caused by bacteria. They have saved and continue to save millions of lives every year, but their effectiveness is threatened by the ability of bacteria to adapt and resist treatment. This phenomenon is known as antibiotic or antibacterial resistance. "Antibiotic resistance refers both to a trend that has been in existence since we have been using antibiotics, and also to all the mechanisms that bacteria use to resist antibiotic therapy," explains Didier Mazel, Head of the Institut Pasteur's Bacterial Genome Plasticity Unit.