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Antibiotic Resistance Of Bacteria And The Soil Of The University Of North Florida

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Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria Native to the Soil of the University of North Florida
Hunter Torres
General Biology II
June 15th, 2015

Introduction
The phenomenon of antibiotic resistance occurs when bacterial organisms can resist – via several different avenues – the harmful effects of antibiotic drugs, which ultimately results in a selective advantage that is not shared amongst the remainder of the population that is still susceptible to the effects of the drugs. There are numerous ways that bacteria are known to show resistance to antibiotics. Some bacteria can modify the chemical nature of the drug, making it ineffective, and yet some possess a different form of target site that the drug is not compatible with, which inhibits the drug’s ability to bind to the bacterial cell. When coupled with prevalent antibiotic use amongst human populations, these acquired mechanisms of resistance can be selectively advantageous to the bacteria in possession of them. Being resistant to one or more antibiotic drugs means that these bacteria can survive and pass on their genes for resistance to their offspring, which can have negative effects on human populations, especially in the healthcare setting. Antibiotic resistance has garnered much attention in recent years across the developed world, as pathogenic microbes become resistant to more and more antibiotics thanks to both the overuse and misuse of these drugs. The increased frequency of which this problem has
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