title: Designing drugs that overcome antibacterial resistance: where do we stand and what should we do?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In recent years, infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacterial pathogens have become a huge issue to public healthcare systems. Indeed, the misuse of antibiotics has led to, over the past 30 years, the emergence of a number of resistant bacterial strains including Staphylococcus aureus, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Escherichia coli and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Unfortunately, efforts to produce new antibiotics have not been sufficient to cope with the emergence of these new antibiotic-resistant (AR) strains.
  
  
  METHODS
  There is an urgent need to invent and employ unconventional strategies for antimicrobial drug development to tackle the rising global threats imposed by the spread of antimicrobial resistance. Herein, the authors discuss these novel design strategies and provide their expert perspective on the subject.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  To deal with the growing threat of AR, it is important to cut down the use of antibiotics to the very minimum to diminish the risk of unknown drug-resistant bacteria and increase antibacterial vaccination programs. Furthermore, it is important to develop new classes of antibiotics that can deal with multidrug-resistant bacterial pathogens.
authors.affiliation: Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", Department of Genetics, Faculty of Biology , 8 Dragan Tzankov Blvd., 1164 Sofia , Bulgaria +35928167340 ; +35928167340 ; robert.penchovsky@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Penchovsky
authors.forename: Martina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Traykovska
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D001419:Bacteria / Q000187:drug effects; D001424:Bacterial Infections / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology; D015195:Drug Design; D024901:Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial; D014943:Global Health; D006801:Humans
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents
keywords: antibacterial drugs; antimicrobial peptide; antimicrobial resistance; antisense oligonucleotides; bacterial pathogens; drug design; phage therapy