Bacterial and parasitic diseases are the second leading cause of death worldwide, according to a report by the London School of Economics. Due to the emergence of drug-resistant "superbugs," like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), traditional antibiotics such as penicillin and its derivatives are in danger of becoming obsolete. In

This volume includes the new antibiotics that have emerged since the previous edition published 12 years ago, particularly those derived from new strains of organisms. It covers the scientific and patent literature to the beginning of 1991 and to keep the volume to a reasonable size, a number of changes have been made to the old format. Where several antibiotics have structures differing only in a few substituents, these have been grouped together with the substituents given in the text under a single chemical structure.

This reference work lists all organisms which produce antibiotics in alphabetical order. It also covers the production of antibiotics from many new strains of known organisms, as these produce new antibiotics as well as amounts of known compounds.