Special Episode: Lina Zeldovich & The Living Medicine

This Podcast Will Kill You

Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts

Health & Fitness, Science

4.8 • 17.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The development of antibiotics was one of the greatest turning points in the history of medicine. Bacterial infections that were once death sentences were cured within a matter of days after administration of these lifesaving compounds. But the honeymoon didn’t last long, as resistant bacterial strains emerged and spread. Now, antimicrobial resistance poses one of the greatest threats to global health; frankly, we can’t invent new antibiotics faster than resistance develops. Fortunately, there may be a solution, one that has existed even before antibiotics came on the scene: phage therapy, the use of bacteriophages to treat bacterial infections. In The Living Medicine: How a Lifesaving Cure Was Nearly Lost—and Why It Will Rescue Us When Antibiotics Fail, author Lina Zeldovich takes readers through the incredible and long-forgotten story of phage therapy and the doctors who developed it. Tune in to learn how phage therapy, after almost being relegated to a footnote in the history of medicine, is reemerging as a possible solution to the deadly problem of antimicrobial resistance.

Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3WwtIAu

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is exactly right. This is exactly right. The The
0:23.6	The Hi, I'm Erin Welsh, and this is, this podcast will kill you.
0:56.9	Welcome to the latest episode in the TPWKY Book Club series. In these episodes, I bring on authors of popular science and medicine
1:03.9	books and chat with them about their work, what inspires them, and how their book can change
1:09.3	the way we understand the world around us.
1:12.3	I've gotten to have some incredible conversations so far this season, and we've got even more
1:17.4	great authors and books lined up for the rest of the year. So stay tuned. If you'd like to
1:23.0	check out what books will be featuring on future episodes, as well as get the full list of books we've
1:28.1	covered in the past, head over to our website, this podcast will kill you.com.
1:33.1	Under the extras tab, click on Bookshop to go to our bookshop.org affiliate page,
1:37.6	which has the list for books featured in these episodes, as well as other podcast-related lists.
1:43.3	I'll be adding more books throughout the rest of
1:45.2	this season, so check in regularly if you'd like to read along. As always, we love hearing from you
1:51.1	all about the books you've enjoyed, any books you'd like to hear featured, suggestions for episode
1:56.3	topics, anything you'd like to share. The best way to get in touch is by filling out the
2:00.8	contact us form on our website. Two last things, and that is to please rate, review, and
2:06.9	subscribe. It really does help us out. And also, you can now find full video versions of most
2:13.1	of our new episodes on YouTube. Make sure you're subscribed to Exactly Right Media's YouTube channel
2:18.5	so you never miss a new episode drop. All right, now let's get into the book of the week.
2:25.4	Antimicrobial resistance is not a new problem. The first penicillin-resistant bacteria appeared
2:31.4	just a heartbeat after the widespread introduction of the antibiotic in the early
2:35.7	1940s. But it is a growing and deadly one. The WHO estimates that in 2019, antimicrobial
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.