EXPLORING THE FUNCTIONAL SPECTRUM OF HOST DEFENCE PEPTIDES (HDPs)

Abstract

Infectious diseases have been a leading cause of the threat to human existence. Starting from early records of 14th century till mid-20th century, a number of severe outbreaks have taken thousands of human lives in a very short span of time, e.g. the bubonic plague of Europe, which swiped away around one-third of its population, deadly massive epidemics of smallpox, influenza, dysentery and typhus that were frequent in the medieval era. In fact, the severity is described such that, at times, there was even lesser number of survivors in town to bury the dead and harvest crop for the season. With gradual learning amongst the people about hygiene and sanitary conditions of living, came an improvement and eradication of frequent plague outbreaks. Furthermore, several new antimicrobial agents were discovered at an accelerated pace and their applicability was found. The first antimicrobial agent in the world was Salvarsan which was the most prescribed therapeutic remedy for syphilis until the introduction of Penicillin. It was synthesized by Ehrlich, along with Alfred Bertheim and Sahachiro Hata in 1907.