The morbidostat is a continuous-culture device that automatically tunes drug concentration to maintain constant growth inhibition.
This carefully controlled epidemic all happens in the space of just one week. The team is beginning to pick apart these mutant bacteria to see exactly how this is happening.
Is the overuse of antibiotics giving rise to the superbugs? Bacteria are far more adaptable than we have given them credit for and now we’re paying.
We have all heard of MRSA, but what is this condition that pervaded the news for such a long time?
Bacteriophages predate on bacteria, and are an ideal weapon in the fight against the superbugs. Hazel Barton collects microbes for antibiotics.
Right now, phage medicines are still in the very early stages but new developments in understanding exactly how bacteria become deadly and giving hope that there could be another way to outsmart them.
Rather than trying to kill dangerous bacteria, Professor Bonnie Bassler is working to modify their behaviour and reveal the bacteria secrets.
Bonnie Bassler “We don’t have to totally win, that’s not the goal. The goal is simply to find out enough to be able to do something useful and then let the next science find out the next thing that’s enough to do something useful.”
Bacteria evolution can occur very rapidly, building resistance to antibiotics at an alarming rate with the development of killer bugs like MRSA.
Many farmers thought it was the best way to keep closely packed animals healthy and for them to grow faster, but Professor Lance Price believes the superbug he was tracking was created, with bacteria evolution, as a result of this kind of antibiotic use.
The increasing use of antibiotics and our increasing reliance on these drugs has allowed many bacteria to evolve antibiotic resistance to our detriment.
Ruth McNerney “It could arrive tomorrow on an aeroplane. It might already be here. We don’t know. We just have to be on our guard. We just can’t afford to let this genie out of the bag.”
The failure of William Henry Perkin to manufacture synthetic quinine, produced, in the 1890s, a successful and popular mauve dye.
Perkin’s story is a warning of the potential perils of targeted research. Had he been working in a commercial environment, it’s likely that because the purple dye wasn’t quinine, his further investigations would have been thought to be an expensive waste of time.
Helen Mason studies The Sun, our star, and when questioned about this hugely expensive research, she simply retorts that all knowledge is priceless.
The natural philosophers of the Royal society had realised that to pursue pure knowledge, to understand the world, you need money.
John Harrison’s invention of the bimetallic strip to produce the first accurate marine clock was an example of targeted science.
Robert Boyle is perhaps Britain’s finest chemist. He is famous for his eponymous Boyle’s Law and noted for his visionary Boyle’s List.
Now, this list would have seemed fantastical to someone in the 17th century. It would have seemed like science fiction, but what I find remarkable about it is that all but two of the 24 things on this list have now been achieved by science, and I suppose that makes Robert Boyle a visionary.
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