Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a potentially pathogenic group of specific Staphylococcus aureus strains that are categorized by the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST) as have high resistance to antibiotics. MRSA is most commonly found in mucus membranes, most notably the nose, and to a lesser extent on the skin and other body cavities.

Due to the antibiotic resistance found in MRSA strains, historical antibiotics such as penicillin and methicillin are no longer effective in treating MRSA infections. Furthermore, MRSA is notoriously quick at evolving an antibiotic resistant phenotype. Methicillin was first introduced as a prescription antibiotic in 1959 and by the mid-to-late 1960s, approximately 80% of S. aureus strains isolated from Western Countries had some level of methicillin resistance. Current research focusing on creating novel antibiotics is expensive, has a low success rate and faces the same fate as methicillin. Patients facing these life-threatening infections have few reliable treatment options left, resulting in MRSA infections having a 20% mortality rate and causing more deaths than HIV in 2015. Hospitals are a key area of concern as they have been susceptible to MRSA outbreaks in the past with a study conducted by Moellering et al. 2011 determining that hospitals were the leading cause of MRSA infection. This shocking finding is most likely due to the fact that MRSA has developed resistance to different antimicrobial agents used to help sterilize operating rooms and hospitals. The bacteria is able to proliferate on walls, floors and other inanimate objects that most commonly cause post-surgical complications due to infection. As a result, patients in hospitals who already have a compromised immune system or are vulnerable to infection are put at higher risk of secondary complications. In order to combat this dangerous bacteria, it is critical that we understand its mechanisms of antibiotic resistance and ability to quickly adapt to new antibiotics in order to improve patient care and prevent future outbreaks.