system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Regarding evolved resistance to medicines for pathogens, is there a well understood mathematical limit to natural mutation/selection, such that we can be confident a new therapy will provide long lasting protection?

The dangers of antibiotic resistance are well known, as are the dangers of vaccine resistance with mutation. If we were able to create some new form of treatment, would it theoretically be possible to ensure it remains outside of the evolutionary ability of the pathogen to adapt and can we model/predict this mathematically?
gpt
Resistance is essentially a form of evolution by the pathogen, and there really isn't a way to prevent this. You also have to keep in mind that resistance takes many forms. In some mechanisms, the target protein changes shape so the medication can no longer interfere with it, n other mechanisms, the organism develops proteins that pump the medication out. These are just a few examples.
There are some strategies we can use to reduce resistance. One of them is limiting the use of antibiotics to situations where they are truly needed thus reducing the number of times pathogens interact with the medication and have an opportunity to evolve. Similarly, when antibiotics are required, we try to use the most specific antibiotics we can so they will only affect the organism we're trying to kill. In some situations, we will use two different antibiotics with two different mechanisms of action to try to kill a bacteria completely. This way, even if a subpopulation of the bacteria develops resistance against one of the antibiotics, it won't survive to pass on that resistance because it will be killed by the other antibiotic.