Despite several promising moonshots, there's no proven alternative waiting to succeed antibiotics as the miracle drug.
Modifying existing antibiotics may add a new generation of antibiotics, but bacteria will eventually evolve to resist them, too. Soap won't stop antibiotic-resistant infections, but scientists are looking to a variety of more advanced technologies that could slow their advance:
—CRISPR-based therapies could use manipulated bacteria to neuter resistance.
—Machine learning to generate novel antibiotics. (Technical paper here.)
—"Phage therapy"—which is where you get injected with viruses from pond water—can combine with antibiotics to checkmate bacteria.
Implementing any of these strategies, as well as shorter term tactics, requires more cooperation between doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and governments than has previously gathered. The only sure thing? Prescribing fewer antibiotics was found to be a key strategy to curb C. Difficile outbreaks in the United Kingdom.
