ABSTRACT
In recent decades, misuse of antimicrobial agents in medicine and agriculture has accelerated the emergence and spread of multidrug-resistant pathogenic microorganisms (Prasad and Kapoor, 2005; Amyes, 2007; Nordmann et al., 2007; Nicasio, Kuti, and Nicolau, 2008; Vergidis and Falagas, 2008). In addition, the problems of antibiotic spectrum, toxicity, and allergic reactions to antibiotics continually plague applications of existing antimicrobials. The need to discover and develop new antimicrobial therapeutics will continue for the foreseeable future. This chapter will focus on recent assay development approaches for discovery of antibacterial and antifungal drugs. Since viruses are non-cellular microorganisms and the approaches to discovery of antiviral drugs are quite distinct from those for antibacterials and antifungals, antiviral drugs will not be addressed. However, excellent reviews covering antiviral drug discovery are available (Westby et al., 2005; Tanikawa, 2006; De Clercq, 2007; von Itzstein, 2007).
