Antibiotic resistance is a huge concern for microbiologists. In addition to stewardship programs and regulating agricultural use of antibiotics, is it time to re-examine clinical testing paradigms?
A recent study suggests that the typical way microbiologists test for antibiotic susceptibility–meuller-hinton plates and antibiotic disks–might be fallible. When his team tested Salmonella against polymyxin using typical methods, the organism tested sensitive; when the tested the same organism against the same antibiotic using medium that more closely resembled human cells, the organism tested resistant.
Bloomberg Business discusses the paper here. The article is worth your time, even if the info-graphic gives erroneous information (it mentions meuller-hinton broth instead of meuller-hinton agar plates).
Lablogatory 