You will apply what you have learned about genetics, evolution, and even a bit of cell biology to the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The PDF posted on Titanium contains the following article (this is the correct citation):
Voss, G. 2014. “What if Antibiotics Stopped Working?” Women’s Health Magazine. Retrieved from: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/antibiotic-resistance.
For the writing assignment, you need to form an opinion, develop a logical argument, and support your argument with evidence from the required article, your class slides & notes, and your textbook (chapter 13, sections 16-19 for viruses, chapter 10 and section 15 for horizontal gene transfer; “vertical gene transfer” is what we learned in genetics—parents passing genes on to offspring) based on the following two points. You do not need to look beyond the article and your textbook/class notes!
Summarize the biology in the article (i.e. you can skip summarizing the part of the article about the unfortunate woman with the resistant UTI). In your summary, use your textbook to help you further explain the two ways that bacteria can pass resistance alleles between one another—biologists would call one way of transferring alleles as “vertical gene transfer” and the second way, “horizontal gene transfer.” The article states many ideas that we can use in our everyday lives to reduce the chances of creating more antibiotic-resistant bacteria. One of them mentioned was getting antibiotics when sick “just in case” the illness is caused by a bacterial infection. What do you think: If you or a loved one is sick with a viral infection, should you ask for antibiotics from your doctor/healthcare professional? Explain why or why not.
Helpful hints: “Bacteria” is a plural word. “Bacterium” is the singular version of that word.
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