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The evolution of antibiotic resistance occurs through natural selection. Imagine a population of bacteria infecting a patient in a hospital. The patient is treated with an antibiotic. The drug kills most of the bacteria but there are a few individual bacteria that happen to carry a gene that allows them to survive the onslaught of antibiotic. These survivors reproduce, passing on the gene for resistance to their offspring, and soon the patient is populated by an antibiotic resistant infection — one that not only affects the original patient but that can also be passed on to other patients in the hospital.

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