Antibiotics in Nature: Beyond Biological Warfare.

The article examines roles that biomedicines play in microbial populations. While it was once assumed that natural antibiotics were microbe-killers produced by soil-dwelling fungi and bacteria, it is now believed that these molecules may serve as tools for communication or aid in microbial metabolism. Knowledge of this subject is largely due to research conducted by Roberto Kolter of the Harvard Medical School and Julian Davies of the University of British Columbia. Kolter’s studies of the drug nystatin, a molecule with potent antifungal properties isolated from a soil bacterium, are examined. Also discussed is the history of antibiotics, beginning with the research of Nobel Prize-winning organic chemist Selman Waksman.