Doxycycline

Doxycycline is a broad-spectrum antibiotic of the tetracycline class, used to treat infections caused by bacteria and certain parasites, including bacterial pneumonia, acne, chlamydia, Lyme disease, cholera, typhus and syphilis, and sometimes given to prevent malaria. It is bacteriostatic, slowing bacterial growth rather than killing bacteria outright, by binding to the bacterial ribosome and blocking protein synthesis. The tetracycline class began when American Cyanamid chemists discovered chlortetracycline, the first tetracycline antibiotic, in the late 1940s, and Pfizer scientists subsequently developed oxytetracycline and then tetracycline itself; a Pfizer team led by Lloyd Conover created doxycycline as an improved semi-synthetic version, clinically developed in the early 1960s and approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration in 1967.