What happens when antibiotics stop working?
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 7 July 2023
⏱️ 25 minutes
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Summary
Scientists are on a mission to solve the problem of drug-resistant infections. It’s a race against time: millions of lives could be at risk when antibiotics stop working. The answer could be a century-old treatment largely abandoned since the invention of penicillin.
Research in this podcast was undertaken with reference to 'The Good Virus' by Tom Ireland. For more information on his book, and on his research into phages see: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-good-viruses-can-save-us-from-our-antibiotics-timebomb-b0gk7crs9
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Guest: Ben Spencer, Science Editor, The Sunday Times.
Host: Jenny Kleeman.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Finance doesn't need to be disrupted. |
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| 0:26.0 | Ripple, crypto means business. |
| 0:37.0 | London, autumn 1928. |
| 0:40.0 | A bacteriologist has returned from holiday to find moldy petri dishes on his lab bench. |
| 0:46.0 | And when he looks closely, he can see that the mold has stopped the growth of the bacteria surrounding it. |
| 0:53.0 | The messy lab, of course, belonged to Alexander Fleming, |
| 0:56.0 | and this accident led to the discovery of penicillin. |
| 1:02.0 | It's no exaggeration to say Fleming's discovery revolutionised medicine. |
| 1:07.0 | With antibiotics, human life expectancy has increased by 20 years, |
| 1:13.0 | but even Fleming knew that antibiotics might not always be able to save us. |
| 1:19.0 | When he won the Nobel Prize in 1945, he warned that one day they could stop working. |
| 1:26.0 | And now, that danger is looming. |
| 1:30.0 | Antibiotic resistance is now one of the biggest threats to global health. |
| 1:35.0 | At least 10 million could die every year if we don't get on top of this. |
| 1:40.0 | Like climate change, we humans are doing it to ourselves, |
| 1:44.0 | but it could kill us before climate change does. |
... |
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