quorum sensing

If you work in infectious diseases in a hospital -- or frankly if you work anywhere in a hospital -- the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria is a serious problem. You have to be constantly aware of what the right drug is to prescribe to ensure its maximum effectiveness, and -- though rare -- there are some bacterial infections for which we have no good drugs. This is why I was very intrigued about researchers trying to design antibiotics that would not create resistant bacteria: Vern L. Schramm, Ph.D., professor and Ruth Merns Chair of Biochemistry at Einstein and senior author of the…