• Question: What disease are examples of where penicillin has been very successful?

    Asked by Bethan to Carmen, Daniel, Laura, Noel, Steph on 11 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Noel Carter

      Noel Carter answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      Penicillin worked on all bacteria to some extent. Bacteria have a special wall structure around the cell membrane. Penicillin works by stopping the wall being built and then the bacteria die. However some bacteria have evolved to be able to resist penicillin and other similar antibiotics.

    • Photo: Carmen Denman

      Carmen Denman answered on 12 Mar 2015:

      Hi Bethan,
      Noel is exactly right. I’ll add some examples of ‘diseases’ or types of infections the family of penicillin antibiotics are used to treat (there is more than one type of penicillin – amoxycilin, ampicilin, etc…). Penicillins are widely used to treat a variety of infections, including skin infections, chest infections and urinary tract infections. So many different types of bacteria or as we say a ‘broad spectrum’ are treatable with penicillins, although not as much as there used to be due to the rise of antibiotic resistance. There is more here on this NHS website if you want to learn about different classes of antibiotics and what they might be used to treat.

      http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Antibiotics-penicillins/Pages/Introduction.aspx

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