Evolution

If you want to see [evolution:changes] at work, visit a hospital. Inside a sick patient, antibiotics wipe out infectious [bacteria:diseases] by the millions. But germs are always mutating. A few adapt to resist the drug, so they survive - and spread. Such [antibiotic-resistant:tenet] bacteria infect two million Americans every year; they kill 23,000. In this arms race between medicine and evolution, evolution is winning.But could we turn evolution against bacteria?It turns out that when bacteria mutate to become resistant to one antibiotic, they often become more [vulnerable:unsafe] to a different drug. So maybe after a jab with the left, a roundhouse to the right will deliver a knockout blow.To test this idea, [researchers:scientists] in Denmark dosed batches of E. coli with 23 different antibiotics, and waited for resistance to evolve. In three-quarters of the cases, the mutant germs became more susceptible to a second drug.The work appears in the journal [Science:Physics] Translational Medicine.One particular combination of widely used antibiotics - gentamicin, then cefuroxime, then gentamicin again, and so on - looks like it could hold the bugs at bay indefinitely.