Concept

The concept underlying the ANTIRESDEV project is that the administration of a particular antibiotic to humans results in the disruption of the indigenous microbiota and the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria - the identities of which depend on the nature of the antibiotic. Different antibiotics, with their distinctive antimicrobial spectrum of activity and pharmacokinetics, induce the emergence of different resistant populations and the dynamics and persistence of such resistance is antibiotic-dependent. A thorough understanding of these processes can be achieved only by ascertaining the genetic basis underlying antibiotic resistance, the means by which the genes responsible are transmitted and an appreciation of the biological cost of resistance to the resistant bacterium.