Antibiotic penicillin led to renewed interest in the search for antibiotic compounds with similar efficacy and safety. For their successful development of penicillin, which Fleming had accidentally discovered but could not develop himself, as a therapeutic drug, Chain and Florey shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Fleming. Florey credited Rene Dubos with pioneering the approach of deliberately and systematically searching for antibacterial compounds, which had led to the discovery of gramicidin and had revived Florey's research in penicillin. In 1939, coinciding with the start of World War II, Dubos had reported the discovery of the first naturally derived antibiotic,
Antibiotic resistance in gonorrhea ability of the antibiotic to get into, or stay in the bacterial cell. High level resistance of "N. gonorrhoeae" to tetracyclines was first reported in 1986 with the discovering of the "tetM" determinant. The mechanism of resistance is still unknown. "N. gonorrhoeae" has also shown resistance to the aminoglycoside class of antibiotics. These antibiotics bind to the 16s rRNA of the 30S subunit of the bacterial ribosome, thereby stopping transcription of the bacterial genome. Resistance appears to be acquired through porin-related mechanisms, much like the cephalosporin resistance mechanism. This mechanism would result in the access of the antibiotic to the