Last week, I was walking out of my dorm when I slipped on some freshly fallen snow and skinned my hands and knees. Since then, I’ve been applying Neosporin to help the scrapes heal faster. I began to wonder how exactly it does that. It turns out that Neosporin consists of three active ingredients: bacitracin, neomycin, and polymyxin B. Bacitracin is made up of polypeptides. After looking up its structure, I was surprised to find that I could identify a few of its amino acids. It’s very strange to realize that I’m rubbing the structures we’re studying in class into my skin.
The other compounds are also antibiotics. However, it turns out that Neosporin has actually been proven to cause skin irritations and even promote the growth of certain bacteria! When its primary function is to kill bacteria. This is probably due to its contribution in promoting antibiotic-resistant bacteria, so the strains that do survive are extra deadly. Thanks to this information, I know I definitely wont be using Neosporin from now on.