The Anties

Antibiotics are drugs that are used to treat infections caused by bacteria and other organisms, including protozoa, parasites, and fungi. They are usually obtained from microorganisms that inhibit the growth or destroy other microorganisms. Actually, we develop an antibiotic by pitting one microorganism against another and thus, try to cure diseases effectively.

Antibiotics that were effective in 1950s like penicillin may not be effective now as the bacteria would have mutated over the years and developed resistance against the antibiotic. Nowadays, another antibiotic cephalexin is preferred to penicillin. This shows the dynamism of the medicine in dealing with the same say “puss-filled sore on leg” over years.

Note: Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin. When clearing up the Petri dishes in his lab, he saw a mold around which the bacteria were being killed. He took a sample of the mold and found that it was from the penicillium family, later specified as Penicillium notatum. Later, chemists developed the antibiotic penicillin from Fleming’s findings. This discovery is often quoted against notions that science must know its goals of experiments before it embarks on them. As Fleming had accidentally found the killer bacteria, some scientists contend that scientific marvels are mostly by chance. So, science shouldn’t worry about its ends and means but it must just do it for something better to emerge out at the end or in the middle.

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Antibody is a special protein made by the body's immune system as a defense against foreign material (bacteria, viruses, etc.) that enters the body. It is uniquely designed to attack and neutralize the specific antigen that triggered the immune response.

Antibodies are proteins produced by the immune system in response to the presence in the body of antigens: foreign proteins or polysaccharides such as bacteria, bacterial toxins, viruses, or other cells or proteins. Such antigens are capable of inflicting damage by chemically combining with natural substances in the body and disrupting the body's processes. The body contains hundreds of thousands of different white blood cells called B lymphocytes, each capable of producing one type of antibody and each bearing sites on its membrane that will bind with a specific antigen. When such a binding occurs, it triggers the B lymphocyte to reproduce itself, forming a clone that manufactures vast amounts of its antibody.

The antibody molecule is composed of four polypeptide chains—two identical light chains and two identical heavy chains—joined by disulfide bridges. The light chains have a variable portion that is different in each type of antibody and is the active portion of the molecule that binds with the specific antigen. Antibodies combine with some antigens, such as bacterial toxins, and neutralize their effect; they remove other substances from circulation in body fluids; they bind certain antigens together, a process known as agglutination; and they activate complement, blood serum proteins that cause the destruction of invading cells.