Cephalosporins - Fighting Hospital Infections: Case Histories of Transformational Advances

Abstract

This case history describes the development of three generations of cephalosporins – antibiotics that have significantly reduced hospital infections. Specifically, we chronicle how: 1) Early (pre-cephalosporin) antibiotics were developed in the first half of the 20th century. 2) Drug companies developed first-generation cephalosporins in the 1960s using foundational discoveries made by researchers in Italy and the UK in the 1940s and 1950s. 3) Continued modifications of cephalosporin molecules resulted in the second and third generations of the drugs in the 1970s and 1980s.