The hidden battle between medicine and microbes

Since the discovery of penicillin in 1928, antibiotics have been our frontline defence against bacterial infections. But this revolutionary medicine is losing ground in the fight. Today, Antimicrobial resistance has become one of the biggest threats to human health– and the stakes only getting higher.

But don’t panic, hope is on the horizon!

In this episode, host Dr. Kaylee Byers takes you on a journey of petri dishes, mouldy melons, and artifical intelligence to investigate our best hopes of curbing antibiotic resistance. She chats with Dr. Rylan Duivenstein about what’s happening in hospitals, and Dr. Nadine Ziemert about using genomics to help find new antibiotics before we run out of options.

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Highlights:

(01:37 ) Mark is faced with the possibility of Necrotizing Fasciitis.

(04:32 ) Kaylee teaches us about the discovery of antibiotics.

(08:05 ) Dr. Ryland Duivenstein explains how antibiotics work.

(20:37 ) Dr. Nadine Ziemert explains how genomics is helping us discover new antibiotics.

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Learn-A-Long: https://bit.ly/4eGsTeX

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Resources:

1. Antibiotics: past, present and future - ScienceDirect

2. The real story behind penicillin - PBS NewsHour

3. The Forgotten Mother of Penicillin - Science History Institute

4. Alexander Fleming (1881–1955): Discoverer of penicillin - NCBI

5. Alexander Flemming Nobel Lecture Speech - Nobel Prize

6. How can we solve the antibiotic resistance crisis? - Gerry Wright

7. WHO - Antimicrobial Resistance - World Health Organization (WHO)

8. WHO updates list of drug-resistant bacteria most threatening to human health - World Health Organization (WHO)

9. Ziemert Lab - Translational Genome Mining for Natural Products - University of Tübingen