One of the vexing public health challenges today is antibiotic resistance. Replicating bacteria are constantly subjected to environmental stimuli which cause them to mutate to resist antibiotics. Among other factors, the promiscuous use of antibiotics, and more rapid and frequent migration of humans who enter foreign countries hosting bacteria native to their home countries speeds the spread and evolution of new strains of bacteria. Meanwhile, the relatively slow pace of antibiotic development is outpaced. Spurred by drug resistant bacteria as well as patent expiration, new antibiotic development research struggles to catch-up with new strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Development is an incredibly time-consuming process that often involves the production of the antibiotic (for instance via fermentation or synthesis), then research trial and error to alter the chemical pathways to produce new structures and drug candidates.
The journal Science (subscription) published research developments by authors Charest MG. et al; "A Convergent Enantioselective Route to Structurally Diverse 6-Deoxytetracycline Antibiotics", in its April 15, 2005 issue. The article describes experimental processes to produce multiple analogs of tetracycline that can then be tested against various bacterial strains for antibiotic effectiveness. A simpler description of the results can be found here at Chemical and Engineering News. The method for synthesizing tetracycline is noteworthy. The yields from the Myers Lab research are very small, but the analogs produced are ones that cannot be made via typical semi-syntheses. Some of these analogs show promise against resistant strains of bacteria, however the preliminary results will need to be explored more painstakenly before scientists find drug worthy candidates.
