Will we still have antibiotics in 50 years? Experts in public health, microbiology, and biochemistry agree that we will still have antibiotics 50 years from now, but these drugs may take a different form than they do today.

Since the discovery of antibiotics, we have realized that bacteria can overcome these drugs through antimicrobial resistance.

The World Health Organization says we are losing ground to bacteria as resistance increases and too few new antibiotics are in development.

We wanted to know if global experts think we'll still have effective antibiotics in 50 years. Several experts said we would.

1. Canadian biochemist Lori L. Burrows

Antibiotics are vital to modern medicine, and we can't afford to lose them.

Although resistance to important pathogens is on the rise and new drug development is being drastically reduced, we have multiple tools to protect antibiotics.

2. André O. Hudson, American biochemist

Yes. But the real question is not whether we will have antibiotics 50 years from now, but what kind of antibiotics will be used.

Most antibiotics today are modified from natural products derived from organisms such as fungi and plants.

The use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other computational tools to help design new unnatural compounds to circumvent the evolution of antibiotic resistance is still in the early stages of development.

Many traditional drugs like penicillin, which are becoming increasingly ineffective today, could be almost ineffective within 50 years.

With the help of new technologies, we predict we will have new drugs to fight bacterial infections.

3. Roy Robins-Browne, Australian microbiologist

Yes, we will have antibiotics because even with advances in vaccinations and other preventative measures, people will still get infections.

That said, the drugs of the future will be very different from what we use today.

The anti-microbial will not kill bacteria or limit their growth in the future, as this would promote the development of drug resistance.

Instead, they will limit the ability of bacteria to cause disease or evade our immune systems.

4. Raúl Rivas González, Spanish microbiologist

Yes, but efforts are needed. Anti-microbial resistance is currently one of the leading causes of death worldwide and will continue to rise.

But in our opinion, there will still be useful antibiotics for fighting bacterial infections in 50 years, which will require innovation and investment.

The antibiotics will require a main change in the search for new active molecules and the design of therapies that can destroy bacteria without developing resistance in the future.

5. Yori Yuliandra, Pharmacist, Indonesia

Yes. Despite declining efficacy over time, new antibiotics are produced each year.

Researchers work tirelessly to develop new and more effective antibiotics and actively explore combinations of antibiotics to improve efficacy.

Although antimicrobial resistance is on the rise, researchers have made significant progress in solving this problem.

They have developed innovative classes of antibiotics that inhibit cell division necessary for bacterial reproduction. Clinical trials are underway.