Antibiotics: Magic Bullets
Antibiotics: possibly the greatest, most important medical discovery ever.
Antibiotics are our major weapon in the war against bacterial infections.
Antibiotics are chemicals that attack bacteria. Some stop the bacteria growing. Some kill the bacteria. In both cases, the effect is that antibiotics stop bacteria from causing infection disease, and help us treat unwell patients.
The term ‘antimicrobials’ means any chemical (including antibiotics) that kills any type of micro-organism, whether it be bacteria, fungi or something else.
How do antibiotics work?
An illustration of how antibiotics work — just like your house key and front door lock!
Let’s think about your front door. Your house key fits your lock perfectly and opens your door, right? Your key won’t fit any other door on the street. And no other key would fit your door lock. So your front door key, and lock, are what we call SPECIFIC to each other.
Antibiotics work in EXACTLY the same way. An antibiotics (the key) has a specific target (the door) either on, or in, a bacteria cell. A target that they fit into perfectly. Antibiotics hunt down their target, and grab hold, binding it tightly.
Antibiotic targets are almost always in really important parts of the bacteria cell. That way they cause as much damage as possible!
The antibiotics either kill the bacteria, or make them grow really slowly. That means the bacteria are no longer any good at causing illness, and so the infection is treated!!!
Kill the Infection Games!
Why don’t you try out some of our games below!
Act like an antibiotic and hunt down those pesky infections — kill the bacteria before they get you first!
Send us a photo of your progress or share it on Twitter @CUsuperbugs!
Click on the images below to play the games.
Antibiotic Assault 2D
Antibiotic Assault 3D
➡️ Do the Emoji quiz
What kind of antibiotics are there? What do they do? And why do they have to have such complicated names?