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by konceptz 2860 days ago
Thank you for the story, I find this fascinating! I’m really surprised how easy it was to accidentally grow this. Is this a 1/(very high number) chance occurrence or is it a somewhat normal happening if proper steps aren’t taken to clean?
1 comments

Growing a resistant strain was more or less guaranteed, because we were effectively creating the ideal evolutionary pressure: an ideal growing medium that strongly favors any additional resistance to ampicillin. It's the same as why doctors remind you to finish any prescription of antibiotics even if you feel better early. It's basic survival of the fittest, where we're strongly defining what "fittest" means.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_resistance