Since the discovery of penicillin in the 1920s, physicians have used it and other antibiotics to effectively treat bacterial infections from pink eye to pneumonia. But just four years after drug companies launched mass-production of penicillin in 1943, microbes began surfacing that could resist it. In today's society, Dr. Liu explained, persons suffering from infection, whether it is bacterial or viral in nature, often feel they should be treated with antibiotics, even though antibiotics have no effect against viral infections such as the common cold. This overuse and misuse of antibiotics has led to new strains of resistant bacteria, such as some forms of staphylococcus and tuberculosis. This situation may leave the general population unprotected against strong bacterial infections that are immune to current treatments, posing a serious threat to human health.
Antibiotic resistance spreads quickly.
Between 1979 and 1987, for example, only 0.02 percent of pneumococcus strains were penicillin-resistant. A report in The Journal of the American Medical Association in June 1994 indicated that 6.6 percent of pneumococcus strains were antibiotic resistant. The issue is so crucial to public health that officials at the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have recently drawn focus to the problems of drug-resistant diseases. Dr. Liu has emerged as one of the country's leading scientists who is taking the threat seriously and has made significant strides in the fight. His research focuses on the biosynthesis of unusual sugars, many of which are structural components of antibiotics.