• Question: how do antibiotics work?

    Asked by 655drud32 to Anne, Florence, Mark, Neil, Sinead on 6 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Sinead Balgobin

      Sinead Balgobin answered on 6 Nov 2015:

      Antibiotics work by changing certain processes (like energy production or growth) inside bacteria. There are two main ways they can do this:

      1) Kill the bacteria directly by, for example, stopping them from being able to make energy, or being able to make a cell wall (which keeps all their insides in). This is called a bactericidal antibiotic.
      2) Stop the bacteria from being able to reproduce or grow. This is called a bacteriostatic antibiotic.

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