World Conference on
Bacteriology and Infectious Diseases

Biography:

Alan Kleinman, (MD, doctor of medicine and PhD, doctor of Mechanical Engineering, licensed in both fields) is a primary care physician. Before his interest in medicine, he worked in aerospace engineering on the Space Shuttle and taught mechanical engineering  at California State University Los Angeles. He got his BS, MS and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, BS in Advanced Biological Science from Touro College, New York, and the MD degree from the American University of the Caribbean.  Drug-resistance had been an increasing problem in his medical practice. He started research on this problem which led to the publication of three papers on drug-resistance, "The basic science and mathematics of random mutation and natural selection", "Random Recombination and evolution of drug resistance", and "The Mathematics of Random Mutation and Natural Selection for Multiple Simultaneous Selection Pressures" published in the Journal "Statistics in Medicine".

Abstract:

Statement of the Problem: Antimicrobial drug resistance has been and continues to be a problem in the treatment of infectious diseases. Any strategy to alleviate this problem needs to be based on a good understanding of how this process occurs. This process of drug resistance occurs by a process of random mutation and natural selection. Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: Random mutation and natural selection is a stochastic process (mutations) intertwined with an adaptive process (natural selection) which changes the number and frequencies of variant in populations. Using the principles of probability theory, the physics and mathematics of the random mutation and natural selection phenomenon is explained. Findings: Random mutation and natural selection operates in a cycle of beneficial mutation followed by amplification (increase in number) of that mutation in order to improve the probability of the next beneficial mutation to occur. Conclusion & Significance: The key to preventing drug resistant infections is by disrupting this cycle of beneficial mutation followed by amplification of that mutation cycle. This is done by forcing the bacterial population to take a more complex evolutionary trajectory by using multiple drugs which target different metabolic pathways.