Fighting Back Against Antimicrobial Resistance with New Vaccines
Will antimicrobial resistance render our current antibiotics useless? Charles Darwin’s
theories of natural selection can even apply to the microscopic organisms that attack our bodies.
Pathogens are using antimicrobial resistance to be able to survive against medical solutions that
physicians have been using for almost 100 years. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is when
pathogens such as bacteria or viruses mutate or change their behavior to survive within our
bodies. They change their response to our drugs/medications and essentially try to bypass our
current internal protections against them. AMR occurs because of the overuse or abuse of
antibiotics. This can happen when doctors over-prescribe a certain dosage of antibiotics, or they
become too available to a certain population who cannot regulate their intake properly.
Antibiotics have been on the foreground of fighting infections and lowering death tolls for many
years. However, recent cases of AMR have brought the need for new solutions of how to fight
super-pathogens since they have begun to make our current antibiotics inert.
I believe that vaccinations are our best response to AMR and more research should be
done to further develop these vaccines. There have been multiple attempts at finding new
antimicrobials that can work against AMR; however, these solutions have reached both scientific
and financial roadblocks. Trials and research have led to very minimal success rates while also
being very costly. Vaccinations, on the other hand, have a more promising outlook. Vaccines
work in such a way that an AMR response is much more difficult to come by. They essentially
attack the pathogen before it can replicate and further spread. The main difference between a
vaccine and an antibiotic is the mechanism by which it targets and attacks pathogens. Vaccines
can focus on the specific antigen that we are trying to target. Antibiotics, on the other hand, can
allow both targeted and bystanding bacteria to gain resistance to it. Vaccinations are also more
beneficial since they only need a few administrations that have long lasting effects.
Antibiotics/microbials need to be constantly provided to fight against the effects of the pathogen.
Combatting AMR is one of the leading issues in the health field, as it has been declared a global
emergency by the World Health Organization in 2023. It is even projected that by 2050, the
annual deaths caused by AMR will exceed the deaths caused by cancer. Vaccines need to be
pushed through clinical trials to protect from causing casualties due to emerging AMR. Without
pushing this avenue of medicinal study, we may lose the natural selection game to microscopic
pathogens.
I believe that I am qualified to write this story because I have done ample research on the
topic and read multiple primary and secondary resource articles on the topic. I have a basic
understanding of how chemistry and how chemical mechanisms work because I am a chemistry
student. I also have a close connection to a pharmacist and am able to reference check my
information with what is currently happening in the pharmaceutical and drug industry. I will
specifically be referencing the following articles throughout the story: Troisi, M., Andreano, E.,
Sala, C., Kabanova, A., & Rappuoli, R. (2020). Vaccines as remedy for antimicrobial resistance
and emerging infections. Current opinion in immunology, 65, 102–106.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coi.2020.09.003; Costanzo, V., & Roviello, G. N. (2023). The Potential
Role of Vaccines in Preventing Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR): An Update and Future
Perspectives. Vaccines, 11(2), 333. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines11020333; and Alghamdi S.
(2021). The role of vaccines in combating antimicrobial resistance (AMR) bacteria. Saudi
journal of biological sciences, 28(12), 7505-7510. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sjbs.2021.08.054. I
have already completed the research portion and will need about a week to complete writing the
story in full. I chose to submit to the Lancet because they have a general focus on medicine and
healthcare. They have recently posted stories on accessing antibiotics and Hepatitis testing, so
my article on the dangers of AMR caused from overuse of antibiotics and how to combat that
will fit in well. They have also more recently posted an article on AMR and digital approaches to
dealing with it. My story will pair with this article nicely since it will focus on the scientific and
clinical trial end of dealing with the same issue.