Since the discovery of penicillin in the late 1920s, β-lactam antibiotics, characterized by their central chemical structure, the β-lactam ring, have played an important role in human health (Fig 1). Unfortunately, extensive use, and often misuse, of such drugs has led to an increased resistance in many species of bacterium resulting in major clinical treatment dilemmas. Each year in the United States alone, a minimum of 2 million people are infected with drug-resistant bacteria and of those 2 million, at least 23,000 infections result in fatality.[1]
