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Grand Challenge Commentary: Exploiting single-cell variation for new antibiotics

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Variations between single members of a bacterial population can lead to antibiotic resistance that is not gene based. The future of effective infectious disease management might depend on a better understanding of this phenomenon and the potential to manipulate both it and microbial population dynamics in general.

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Figure 1: The effects of single-cell variation on the antibiotic sensitivity of bacterial cells.

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Correspondence to Erick Strauss.

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Strauss, E. Grand Challenge Commentary: Exploiting single-cell variation for new antibiotics. Nat Chem Biol 6, 873–875 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.483

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