# Antibiotic Resistance Primer

> The slow-motion pandemic. By 2050, antimicrobial resistance could kill 10 million people a year. Understand how bacteria fight back, why we're running out of drugs, and what comes next.

- **Canonical URL:** https://skemr.com/experience/antibiotic-resistance-primer
- **Category:** Education & Learning
- **Curated by:** SKEMR AI
- **Contents:** 3 journeys, 7 chapters, 14 sources
- **Last updated:** 2026-09-14

## What this is

A curated transmedia experience: existing web sources selected and ordered by an editor. SKEMR does not host the underlying content — each item links to its original publisher. Journeys are alternative routes through the same material.

## Journeys

### The Full Crisis
Every scene from Fleming to phages.

- Steps: 14
- Machine-readable: https://skemr.com/api/ai-context/antibiotic-resistance-primer/journeys/journey-full
- Briefing for a chat: https://skemr.com/api/ai-context/antibiotic-resistance-primer/journeys/journey-full/briefing.md

### Quick Crisis
Five highlights.

- Steps: 5
- Machine-readable: https://skemr.com/api/ai-context/antibiotic-resistance-primer/journeys/journey-quick
- Briefing for a chat: https://skemr.com/api/ai-context/antibiotic-resistance-primer/journeys/journey-quick/briefing.md

### The Action Track
What's being done and what you can do.

- Steps: 3
- Machine-readable: https://skemr.com/api/ai-context/antibiotic-resistance-primer/journeys/journey-action
- Briefing for a chat: https://skemr.com/api/ai-context/antibiotic-resistance-primer/journeys/journey-action/briefing.md

## Chapters

- **The Antibiotic Era** — Fleming, Florey, Chain — and the discovery that changed medicine.
- **How Bacteria Resist** — Mutation, horizontal gene transfer, and selection pressure.
- **The Superbugs** — MRSA, C. diff, CRE, drug-resistant TB.
- **Why It's Getting Worse** — Overuse in medicine, agriculture, and the empty pipeline.
- **The Numbers** — 1.27 million deaths in 2019 — and rising.
- **What's Being Done** — WHO action plan, stewardship, and new drug development.
- **Phages — A New Hope?** — Viruses that hunt bacteria — and the renaissance of phage therapy.

## Sources

- [Alexander Fleming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fleming): The 1928 contaminated petri dish that started it all.
- [History of Penicillin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_penicillin): From mould to mass production by Florey and Chain.
- [Mechanisms of Antibiotic Resistance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_resistance#Mechanisms): Efflux pumps, target modification, enzyme breakdown.
- [Horizontal Gene Transfer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer): How bacteria share resistance genes — even between species.
- [MRSA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methicillin-resistant_Staphylococcus_aureus): Methicillin-resistant Staph. aureus — the hospital superbug.
- [Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-drug-resistant_tuberculosis): The deadly comeback of an ancient disease.
- [Antibiotics in Livestock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock): Why 70% of medically important antibiotics go to farm animals.
- [The Empty Pipeline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic#Development): Why pharma companies stopped developing antibiotics.
- [Bacteriophage Therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy): Using viruses to kill bacteria — old idea, new urgency.
- [Global Burden of AMR — Lancet 2022](<https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02724-0/fulltext>): First comprehensive global estimate: 1.27M direct deaths in 2019.
- [Why 10 Million by 2050?](https://amr-review.org/): The O'Neill Review and the projection that focused the world.
- [WHO — AMR Global Action Plan](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antimicrobial-resistance): The five strategic objectives countries have signed up to.
- [Antimicrobial Stewardship](https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/index.html): What hospitals, doctors, and patients can do today.
- [Bacteria Evolving Resistance — Harvard MEGA-Plate](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=harvard+mega+plate+bacteria+evolution+antibiotic): The famous video of bacteria evolving 1,000x resistance in 11 days.

## Attribution

Curated by SKEMR. The underlying content belongs to the linked publishers. Please cite the source URLs rather than SKEMR for factual claims.