2018 Calendar: Mechanisms of Antimicrobial Resistance

Antibiotics have saved countless lives, but pathogens are quickly finding ways to survive antibiotic treatment. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are predicted to become the leading cause of death worldwide, with an expected death rate of 10 million people annually by 2050. They take many approaches: pumping antibiotics out of their cells, altering the molecular machinery that the antibiotics target, and attacking the antibiotics directly. Atomic structures publicly available in the PDB are revealing the details of drug resistance and providing new ways to combat it.