Ó³»­´«Ã½

Ó³»­´«Ã½ institute member James Collins demystifies how antibiotics work, laying a path toward smarter, more effective use of existing bacteria-fighting drugs

The widespread use of antibiotics marked a major turning point in medical history. Bacterial infections that once disfigured or killed their hosts could be neutralized simply, swiftly, and, for the most part, safely.

What: When bacteria invade the human body, immune cells rush to our defense, initiating a high-stakes tug-of-war in which macrophages – a type of immune cell that engulfs and digests pathogens and cellular debris – attempt to destroy the invaders while the bacteria look to survive and replicate. The outcomes of these cellular death matches vary from cell to cell: some macrophages engulf bacteria while others remain uninfected, and of those infected, some destroy their invaders while others allow bacteria to thrive.

Between 2013 and 2015, an outbreak of Ebola virus killed more than 11,000 people. Ó³»­´«Ã½ researchers quickly deployed real-time sequencing efforts that confirmed that the virus was primarily spreading through human-to-human contact rather than between animals and humans and that the viral genome was mutating. This work had a profound impact on how public health officials diagnosed the disease and developed strategies to contain it.