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Recently, there has been an upsurge in microbial infections. Extensive and inappropriate usage of antimicrobial drugs in treating infections has led to the evolution of a resistant strain of microorganisms and irreversible immunosuppression in humans. Medical institutions and hospitals require solutions to combat these contagions in order to avoid future epidemics. Strategies to Overcome Superbug Invasions: Emerging Research and Opportunities highlights current research and potential strategies to prevent the emergence and re-emergence of drug-resistant pathogenic microbial strains. The content within this publication examines biosensing, global initiatives, nanomaterials, and alternative therapies. It is designed for microbiologists, biotechnologists, pharmacists, pharmacologists, virologists, formulation scientists, infectious disease specialists, government officials, policymakers, healthcare practitioners, doctors, nurses, hospital directors, researchers, surgeons, and academicians who are seeking research on innovative solutions for multi-drug-resistant infections.

Nullius in verba... Truth will be tested not by words. Horace (Epistles) Few read introductions except for book reviewers, who want to take a shortcut and avoid reading the book itself. However, tradition requires that the preface make public why the book was written at all (this is not supposed to include powerful reasons such as augmenting the ego of the editor and authors). Frequently, the inflationary tendency to publish in verbose length is in conflict with market forces and interest. No doubt, multidrug resistance is a'fashionable'topic, but there are many fashions displayed on the cat-walk of scientific literature. One can rationalize that the forces driving our concern with multi drug resistance reflect the frustration of pharmaceutical companies and oncologists alike: as soon as a new anticancer drug enters clinical trials, cancer cells start eluding extinction with their elaborate and successful mechanisms. Many grants have been awarded and spent, only to confirm the futility of our efforts to defeat this cellular Darwinism. Our medical and scientific training makes it hard, if not impossible, to accept that the survival of a malignant cell, alone or as part of a tissue, is part of the continuance of life. Since exposure to noxious and lethal substances is unavoidable, cells have been forced to develop a multitude of mechanisms to prevent entry or accelerate exit of such materials from intracellular space.

The ability of neoplastic cells to survive exposure to various chemotherapeutic drugs represents the main obstacle to successful cancer chemotherapy. This book deals with a particular type of resistance in tumor cells that represents a single but especially important aspect of the multifaceted problem of cancer drug resistance. This type of resistance, known as multidrug or pleiotropic drug resistance, is characterized by cross-resistance of cells to several different classes of cytotoxic drugs, including some of the most commonly used anticancer agents. Over the last several years, there has been a veritable explosion of genetic, biochemical, and clinical information on multidrug resistance, which followed the identification and cloning of the genes responsible for this phenotype and the isolation of monoclonal antibodies against P-glycoproteins, the products of these genes. Elucida­ tion of the molecular mechanism of multidrug resistance has led to the formulation of novel approaches to the prediction of tumor response to chemotherapeutic drugs and increasing the efficacy of cancer therapy. Analysis of the structure and function of P­ glycoproteins from multidrug-resistant mammalian cells has also established a prototype for a novel class of eukaryotic membrane proteins, which have now been associated with a variety of transport processes in different organisms. This book summarizes the results of molecular biological, pharmacological, bio­ chemical, cytogenetic, immunological, and pathological studies on multidrug resistance in mammalian cells. Most of the chapters deal at least to some extent with the structure and expression of P-glycoprotein and its role in multidrug resistance.

Multiple drug resistance is a condition enabling a disease-causing organism to resist distinct drugs or chemicals of a wide variety of structure and function targeted at eradicating the organism. Infections caused by multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria are an increasing problem worldwide. The interaction among several genetic host factors, distinctive anatomical and other features of the bacteria, and hygiene measures, play a paramount role in the treatment of infections caused by multidrug-resistant organisms. This important book gathers the latest research from around the world on multiple drug resistance and its clinical consequences.