October 26, 2022

Quiz: Antibiotic Resistance and Researchers Studying It

Antibiotics are a class of drugs that treat bacterial infections. They may seem common now, but they were discovered less than a century ago. In 1928, Alexander Fleming, a scientist studying bacteria, found that mold from his bread kept bacteria from growing. He determined that “mold juice” was able to kill different types of harmful bacteria, and he and his assistants worked to figure out what natural product in the mold was actually causing the killing. It turned out to be penicillin!

Thanks to Fleming’s discovery, doctors have been successfully treating bacterial infections with penicillin and other newer antibiotics. But in recent years, some infections that were once treatable with antibiotics no longer respond to them. Some of these infections can be treated with multiple rounds of different antibiotic treatments, but others aren’t treatable at all—even leading to death in some cases.

On the left, a Petri dish with many round colonies of bacteria around its perimeter. On the right, a petri dish with bioluminescent bacterial colonies with bright red centers and green-to-blue perimeters.
Colonies of bacteria growing despite high concentrations of antibiotics. These colonies are visible both by eye, as seen on the left, and by bioluminescence imaging, as seen on the right. Credit: Devin Sindeldecker and Paul Stoodley, Ohio State University.

The quiz below will test your knowledge of bacterial infections with examples from some of the scientists we’ve recently featured on the blog who explore new ways to fight these infections. Access the original blog posts at the bottom of the quiz to learn more about each of the researchers and their work.

Headshot of Dr. Victor Torres.

Image Credit: Keenan Lacey, Ph.D.

#1. Dr. Victor Torres studies “the dance between a bacterium and its host.” His lab is looking for new ways to prevent and treat infections, especially those that aren’t responding to medications. What is the term used to describe these types of infections?
Headshot of Dr. Ry Young.

Image Credit: Texas A&M University.

#2. Dr. Ry Young looks for “self-destruct buttons” in bacteria that he hopes will enable researchers to develop new antibiotics to target bacterial infections. He uses viruses that infect bacteria to point out these “buttons.” What are these viruses called?
Headshot of Dr. Elizabeth Parkinson.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Elizabeth Parkinson.

#3. Many antibiotics used today originated from bacteria, and Dr. Elizabeth Parkinson’s lab focuses on identifying natural products from soil-dwelling bacteria that could potentially be used as new antibiotics. What is a natural product?
Headshot of Dr. César de la Fuente.

Image Credit: Martí E. Berenguer.

#4. Dr. César de la Fuente thinks that tackling big problems like antibiotic resistance "require many minds that think differently working together." He programs computers to search for new antibiotics with his team of scientists. What type of scientists might be involved in this work?
You can find more about all the researchers featured in this quiz in these blog posts:
From MARC Student to MacArthur Fellow (Dr. Victor Torres)
How Bacteria-Infecting Viruses Could Save Lives (Dr. Ryland Young)
Career Conversations: Q&A with Organic Chemist Elizabeth Parkinson
Career Conversations: Q&A with Bioengineer César de la Fuente

This post is a great supplement to Pathways: The Superbug Issue.

Both this post and Pathways discuss antibiotic resistance.

Learn more in our Educator's Corner.


About the Author

Rachel Crowley

Rachel Crowley

Rachel enjoys using her medicinal chemistry training to create accessible public health content and engaging science education resources.