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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Sam Brown, associate professor, bacterial virulence and evolutionEach year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, 2 million Americans develop an antibiotic-resistant infection, and 23,000 die from it. At Georgia Tech, Associate Professor of Biology Sam Brown, who works in Tech's new Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection, says the overuse of antibiotics in farming and medicine can make us vulnerable to drug-resistant bacteria. "Very simply, it means you'll take the same drugs and they won't work," Brown says. "So, if you have an ear infection, it will not resolve, because the antibiotic is unable to kill the bacteria." If you take an antibiotic for a viral infection, which the medications are not designed to treat, the antibiotic can attack and destroy healthy bacteria in your body, creating a void for potentially harmful bacteria to move in. "So, this is actually damaging to you as an individual," Brown says. "It's damaging to you in terms of your microbiome and your risk of subsequent infection." Study got similar coverage from Fox 2 KTVU.
