Eldredge 1

Harland Eldredge
Professor Baird
ENG 1010 023
27 July 2015
Annotated Bibliography
As I intend to major in nursing, I wanted to research something that applied to my future
field of work. I came across a Ted Talk that made me look at the way bacteria has been
responding to the medicine that has become so commonplace in our daily lives and made me
want to learn more. Brought up in the argument of that Ted Talk was that the resistance bacteria
was having against antibiotics was threatening the future of how humans would face their day to
day lives. I want to know if the antibiotics we use to treat illnesses and infections today will
become useless against the same ailments in the future. I feel this is a pressing issue due to the
potential threats it has on all of humanity. If we were unable to treat simple infections, it would
render us useless against the much bigger diseases we face and we could find many dying due to
a scrape from walking too close to a fence.

Chattopadhyay, Madhab K., Ranadhir Chakraborty, Hans-Peter Grossart, et al. Antibiotic

Resistance of Bacteria. BioMed Research International. Hindawi. 26 Mar. 2015. Web.
27 Jul. 2015. (Peer Review)
The authors explains that bacterial resistance is causing the life-saving drugs that
were used to help cure infections and diseases to become unusable in aiding people with
these diseases now. The authors uses the majority of the article to cite the work of many
other researchers to show examples of infections that have become resistant to

Eldredge 2
antibiotics. They hope their research can help aid in the investigations of new ways to
treat these illnesses.
The authors use the work of a lot of other researchers to help prove their point.
They all have some credibility due to the experience they have had in the medical field.
They use a lot of other sources to help convince you of the rising threat bacterial
resistance is posing to our daily lives. While they showed numerous infections which
were already resisting to treatment, I didnt find their article incredibly convincing.
This article ties others together in the support that antibiotics are no longer as
useful in treatment of infections due to the bacterial resistance at hand. It goes along well
with the Ted Talk by McKenna by the implications that if things arent done to solve this
problem, we will be in a medical epidemic. The article made me realize the many
different infections which are currently resisting treatments and the seriousness of the
rising epidemic.
Collins, Francis. We Need Better DrugsNow. TED. Apr. 2012. Web. 27 Jul. 2015.
Collins explains that there are roughly 4000 diseases in the world, and that at the
moment we only have cures for 250 of those. He shows how the process of making new
medications is taking too long. He argues that with the time it takes to make these new
drugs we are falling behind in the fight with bacteria. He urges that we speed up this
process by making the best use of the technology that is now readily available to us. He
gives examples of how AZT was initially made to treat cancer but found that it was much
better suited for HIV/AIDS, and suggests we take other tested medications which arent
suitable for treating their intended infections and see if they work for other illnesses.

Eldredge 3
The author is the head of the National Institutes of Health and has a lot of
experience of working within the field of healthcare. He uses many statistics and charts to
show the audience the importance of his argument and even brings on a guest speaker
from a trial drug that only took four years to get to the testing stage. The author was very
convincing in his speech and in his demonstrations of how we can speed the process of
developing new drugs.
This talk goes well with the article by Lucy Palmer as it explores new ways to
treat illnesses. It also is along the same lines as the Ted Talk by Kary Mullis as it urges
for faster ways to treat diseases through making the best use of technology. This article
helped me to see the way drugs which have failed testing for other infections could be
tried against other infections to see potential matches, which is a thought that hadnt
occurred to me before.
McKenna, Maryn. What Do We Do When Antibiotics Dont Work Anymore? TED. Mar. 2015.
Web. 18 Jul. 2015.
She shows an example of how in the 1930s a simple infection, which could have
been cured now through the use of antibiotics, took the life of her great-uncle. She claims
that the majority of deaths that happened back then were not due to the many major
illnesses that plague us in our day, but were in fact caused by simple injuries which then
led to infections. McKenna states that with the invention of antibiotics we have been able
to treat such infections so easily that they barely seem more than a nuisance; but along
with said invention, the bacteria have begun to fight back. She delves into studies that
show how with the rise of antibiotic resistance from bacteria, we are no longer able to
fight these infections as well as we have in the past, and the death toll already is getting

Eldredge 4
high. She urges that if these problems arent resolved, if we arent able to find a way to
beat the bacteria, within the next 35 years we could be seeing thesewhat weve come to
know asminor infections become a very serious threat that could alter every aspect of
how we live our daily lives.
The author has credibility from her work as a journalist for many well-known
publishers and she uses many statistics and charts to show how infections have become
less easy to treat. She was very convincing in her talk and gave many examples to try and
persuade the audience to see her view of thinking.
This is the talk that originally sparked my interest in this topic. It goes well with
and supports all of the other articles as it explains the impact that the bacterial resistance
could have on our lives and also offers solutions to help us to overcome it. This article
introduced me to the fact that bacteria is resisting our antibiotics. It has made me think a
lot differently about the use of drugs and antibiotics.
Mullis, Kary. A Next-Gen Cure for Killer Infections. TED. Feb. 2009. Web. 27 Jul. 2015
The presenter introduces a molecule that is highly disliked by anti-bodies, which
can be technologically programmed to attach itself to certain cells or organisms within
the body. He then explains that by doing so our bodys natural defense system will put all
effort into ridding those cells, organisms, infections, viruses from our body. He shows an
example of it being used on mice who had been poisoned with anthrax who were all
successfully cured from that anthrax poisoning.
Kary Mullis is very credible biochemist. He has even won the Nobel Prize in
Chemistry for his discoveries made with DNA and being able to copy a strand through
his invented process of PCR. Although his talk was brief, the points he made and

Eldredge 5
examples he gave were very convincing that this new technology can help us to begin
cure numerous infections and diseases.
This lecture reflects well with that of Francis Collins, as it discusses how
infections affect the targeted cells and what cures need in order to treat those infections.
This article helped me to see how we can make the best use out of technology, not just in
helping to derive new medications, but in actual treatment of disease and infection.
Palmer, Lucy B., and Gerald C. Smaldone. "Reduction of bacterial resistance with inhaled
antibiotics in the intensive care unit." American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care
Medicine 189.10 (2014): 1225-1233. PDF file. (Peer Review)
The authors conducted a study in which they gave Aerosolized Antibiotics to one
part of the test group and a placebo aerosol to the other part. They were able to find that
with the aerosolized antibiotic they were able to eradicate pneumonia within the patients
and that the bacteria did not grow resistant to the drug as it did with systemic antibiotics.
The authors are both doctors and gain their credibility from the lengthy years of
experience they both have. They use a lot of statistics from their own findings within the
study to show the results of their argument and to prove their point. Their findings were
convincing that by changing the way antibiotics are administered it can decrease, or even
eliminate, resistance from bacteria.
I feel this study agrees on much with that from the talk by Francis Collins as it
explores the way our current medicine can be used in different ways to be more effective
in treatment of infection and disease. This study has made me realize that there are more
than one way to administer medication, and that depending on the varying ways there can
be different outcomes in responses from bacteria.

Eldredge 6

In researching this topic I have found that bacterial resistance is a problem that is
threatening the way that the human race currently exists. We are already in the in the midst of
fighting a battle with bacteria that a lot of the world doesnt even know about. With that being
said, the medicines we are currently using are being rethought as to how to approach an infection
so that it wont build up a resistance to it, rendering it useless for the future. New drugs and
antibiotics are being researched with these specific problems in mind to help combat the rise of
resistance. With funding and getting the word out there we will be able to help do our part in
saving the human race from the calamity of bacterial resistance to antibiotics.