Why This Matters
Antibiotic resistance is one of the most serious threats facing modern medicine. When bacteria develop the ability to defeat the antibiotics held in reserve for the toughest infections, the consequences are measured in lives. Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus, or VRE, is one of the most dangerous examples: a bacterium that can resist not just vancomycin but multiple antibiotics simultaneously, spreading through hospitals and health care facilities and disproportionately affecting patients who are already critically ill.
