One of the major advances in medical science has been the development of antimicrobials; however, a consequence of their widespread use has been the emergence of drug-resistant populations of microorganisms. There is clearly a need for the development of new antimicrobials--but more importantly, there is the need for the development of new classes of antimicrobials, rather than drugs based upon...

The quinolone class is one of the more important classes of antimicrobial agents discovered in recent years and one of the most widely used classes of antimicrobial drugs in clinical medicine. Their broad spectrum of activity and pharmacokinetic properties make the quinolone agents ideal for treating a variety of infections. Their clinical importance is further demonstrated by their activity ag...

Several antiarrhythmic and non-cardiovascular drug therapies including antimicrobial agents have been implicated as the causes for QT interval prolongation, torsades de pointes (TdP) ventricular tachycardia and sudden cardiac death. Most of the drugs that have been associated with the lengthening of the QT interval or development of TdP can also block the rapidly activating component of the del...

The term "infectious (liseases" conjures visions of foul miasmas, fever swamps, great plagues ancl ol0(Paul 1\Iuni movies. 'Most of us wlho practice the specialty, lhowever, may go weeks witlhout conquering an epi(lemic. Much of our time is spent answering questioins that do not bear on the broad aspects of infectious (lisease strategy, but (leal witlh the often more (lifficult tactical questio...

The antimicrobial activity of five compounds extracted from marine algae was tested against Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella choleraesuis, Mycobacterium smegmatis, Candida albicans, and Escherichia coli. Three of the compounds, cycloeudesmol, laurinterol, and debromolaurinterol, exhibited activity at concentrations approaching that of streptomycin. None of the compounds inhibited all of the or...

A flexible synthesis of the azafluorenone alkaloids 1, 2, 3, and 4 is described.

South America" is considerably more general and simply comments on what is known about what had happened in the past and what has been observed in recent expeditions rather than attempting a compilation. Few aspects of medical investigation are untouched by this book and the discussions and references range from the high estrogen levels in African Bushmen to high altitude performance to the gen...

ELLIOTT, S. D. AND BARNES, ELLA MI. 1959 Changes in serological type and antibiotic resistance of Lancefield group D streptococci in chickens receiving dietary chlortetracycline. J. Gen. Microbiol., 20, 426-433. GALE, G. 0. AND HALL, R. H. 1959 The influence of submaximal antibiotic levels on the growth of chlortetracycline-resistant bacteria. In Antibiotics annual 19581959, pp. 1040-1046. Medi...

The use of and search for drugs and dietary supplements derived from plants have accelerated in recent years. Ethnopharmacologists, botanists, microbiologists, and natural-products chemists are combing the Earth for phytochemicals and "leads" which could be developed for treatment of infectious diseases. While 25 to 50% of current pharmaceuticals are derived from plants, none are used as antimi...

Copyright © 2012 Mathew Upton et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In developing this special issue, we sought to raise awareness of the potential of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) for clinical use and to highligh...