The Search for New Antibiotics Under the Sea

Summary

The script discusses the alarming rise of antibiotic resistance, predicting that by 2025, infectious diseases could outpace cancer in mortality. It highlights the urgent need for new drugs and turns to the ocean as a potential source of biomedical resources. The speaker recounts their journey in marine exploration, the development of sampling strategies, and the discovery of new antibiotic compounds. The challenges faced by the pharmaceutical industry in developing new antibiotics are underscored, emphasizing the critical need for investment and innovation to combat this public health crisis.

Takeaways

• 💊 Antibiotics are becoming ineffective against common infectious diseases like pneumonia and skin infections.
• ⏳ By 2025, infectious diseases are predicted to cause more deaths than cancer if no action is taken to combat antibiotic resistance.
• 🌊 The ocean is being explored as a new source for discovering drugs, including new antibiotics.
• 🏥 Hospital-acquired infections like MRSA are increasingly resistant to antibiotics, posing a significant health risk.
• 🛳️ The speaker recounts experiences of exploring the ocean for microorganisms, including dangerous weather and pirate encounters.
• 🔬 Scientists have developed tools and strategies to collect samples from various depths of the ocean for microbiological analysis.
• 🧪 Over 18,000 strains of bacteria have been isolated and preserved for potential antibiotic development.
• 🛑 The misuse of antibiotics is accelerating the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, leading to a vicious cycle of increased hospital stays and costs.
• 🚑 The consequences of antibiotic resistance include longer hospital stays, higher medical costs, and an increased risk of death from infections.
• 🧬 The speaker discusses the discovery of new antibiotic compounds from oceanic microorganisms, such as 'an terasa Meissen', which shows promise in treating MRSA.
• 💼 The development of new antibiotics is hindered by the high costs and low financial incentives for pharmaceutical companies.
• 🏛️ Despite recognition of the problem by political figures, there is a lack of national focus and funding for the development of new antibiotics in the United States.

Q & A

Why are current antibiotics becoming less effective?

Current antibiotics are becoming less effective due to the overuse and misuse of these drugs, which allows bacteria to evolve and develop resistance to them.

What is the potential consequence if we don't address the issue of antibiotic resistance?

If we don't address the issue of antibiotic resistance, by 2025 more people are predicted to die from infectious diseases than from cancer.

Why is the ocean considered a new source for drugs?

The ocean is considered a new source for drugs because it is a massive, largely unexplored biomedical resource that could potentially yield new antibiotics to combat resistant bacteria.

What is the 'snapper' device used for in the context of the script?

The 'snapper' is a device used to collect samples from the ocean floor at depths of 1,000 meters (3,000 feet), providing material for further study and potential drug development.

How many strains of bacteria have been isolated from the ocean over the past 15 years according to the script?

Over the past 15 years, approximately 18,000 strains of bacteria have been isolated from the ocean.

What is the significance of the antibiotic 'an terasa Meissen' mentioned in the script?

An terasa Meissen is a new kind of antibiotic structure discovered from oceanic bacteria, unrelated to any other known antibiotics, and has shown high potency against MRSA in experimental models.

What challenges do pharmaceutical companies face in developing new antibiotics?

Developing new antibiotics is challenging due to the high costs involved, the short duration of use for such drugs, and the low return on investment compared to other types of medications like cancer treatments.

Why did the major pharmaceutical industry stop isolating new antibiotic compounds?

The major pharmaceutical industry stopped isolating new antibiotic compounds due to the high costs and risks associated with research and development, as well as the limited market potential for these drugs.

What is the current state of national focus on the development of new antibiotics in the United States according to the script?

As of the script's information, there is no national focus on the development of new antibiotics in the United States, with Congress not allocating funds for this purpose despite an initiative declared by President Obama.

What is the potential impact of not developing new antibiotics?

The potential impact of not developing new antibiotics could lead to a massive epidemic of infectious diseases, with tens of thousands of deaths per year in the US, as existing antibiotics become ineffective.

What is the role of environmental substances in the development of antibiotics?

Environmental substances, which have been present for millennia, have been harnessed over the last 90 years to develop antibiotics. However, the overuse of these substances has led to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Outlines

00:00

💊 Antibiotic Resistance and Ocean Exploration

The script addresses the urgent issue of antibiotic resistance, highlighting the fact that common antibiotics are becoming ineffective against infectious diseases such as pneumonia and skin infections. It emphasizes the potential of the ocean as an untapped source for new drugs. The speaker recounts their journey at Scripps Oceanography, exploring various regions and developing innovative sampling tools to collect bacteria from the ocean depths. Over 15 years, they have isolated 18,000 strains of bacteria, preserved them for further study, and discovered the environmental substances' potential in treating serious infections. The narrative also touches on the challenges of antibiotic resistance, including longer hospital stays and higher medical costs, and the need for continuous drug development to counter the evolving bacteria.

05:00

🌊 Marine Microorganisms: A New Hope for Antibiotics

This paragraph delves into the dwindling resources for discovering new antibiotics and the shift of focus from soil to marine environments. The speaker shares the story of discovering a bacterium in beach sand that was effective against MRSA, leading to the isolation of a new compound called an terasa Meissen. The compound showed promising results in animal models, with an 85% survival rate in rats infected with MRSA, without signs of toxicity. However, the speaker also discusses the challenges in developing new antibiotics, including the high costs and risks involved, the lack of interest from pharmaceutical companies, and the absence of national focus or funding for antibiotic development. Despite these obstacles, the speaker remains committed to exploring marine microorganisms for potential new treatments, having found several quality antibiotics and cancer drugs in recent years.

Keywords

💡Antibiotics

Antibiotics are substances that inhibit the growth of or destroy bacteria and other microorganisms. In the video, it is emphasized that existing antibiotics are becoming ineffective against infectious diseases such as pneumonia and skin diseases due to antibiotic resistance. This is a central theme as it highlights the urgency and importance of finding new sources for antibiotics.

💡Infectious Diseases

Infectious diseases are illnesses caused by pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi. The transcript discusses the rising threat of infectious diseases becoming more deadly than cancer by 2025 due to antibiotic resistance, illustrating the severity of the situation and the need for new treatments.

💡Ocean

The ocean is presented as a vast, untapped source of new biomedical resources and potential new drugs in the video. The speaker's journey to explore the ocean for microorganisms that could lead to the development of new antibiotics is a key narrative, emphasizing the ocean's role in the search for solutions to antibiotic resistance.

💡Mersenne Infection

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a type of bacterial infection that is resistant to many antibiotics. The script mentions MRSA as an example of an infection that has become over 90% resistant to antibiotics, underlining the crisis of antibiotic resistance.

💡Cryo Preservation

Cryo preservation is a method of preserving biological materials at very low temperatures to maintain their viability. The script describes how the speaker's team has isolated and preserved thousands of bacterial strains for future study, which is crucial for developing new antibiotics.

💡Drug Resistance

Drug resistance occurs when bacteria evolve to withstand the effects of drugs that were previously effective in killing them. The video discusses the rise of drug-resistant bacteria and the vicious cycle it creates, leading to longer hospital stays, higher medical costs, and the need for new drugs.

💡Epidemic

An epidemic is a widespread outbreak of an infectious disease that affects many people within a community or region. The transcript warns of an impending epidemic of infectious diseases in the next five years if no action is taken to combat antibiotic resistance.

💡Penicillin

Penicillin is a group of antibiotics derived from Penicillium fungi, which was one of the first antibiotics to be discovered and used to treat bacterial infections. The script mentions penicillin as an example of an antibiotic that originated from natural sources, similar to the new antibiotics sought from the ocean.

💡Clinical Trials

Clinical trials are research studies that involve human volunteers to test the safety and effectiveness of new drugs. The video mentions that two of the new cancer drugs discovered are in clinical trials, indicating the process that new drugs must go through before they can be approved for use.

💡Public Health Issue

A public health issue refers to a health-related problem that affects a significant portion of the population. The transcript identifies drug-resistant bacteria as one of the most serious public health issues, highlighting the need for a national focus and investment in the development of new antibiotics.

💡Biomedical Resource

A biomedical resource refers to a substance or organism that can be used in medical research or treatment. The ocean is described as a 'massive biomedical resource' in the video, emphasizing the potential it holds for discovering new drugs to combat infectious diseases.

Highlights

Antibiotics are becoming ineffective against infectious diseases such as pneumonia and skin infections.

By 2025, infectious diseases may cause more deaths than cancer if no action is taken.

The ocean is recognized as a vast, untapped source for new drugs and antibiotics.

Hospital-acquired infections like Mersenne are highly resistant to current antibiotics.

Exploration of the ocean for microorganisms began with a focus on Central America and the Indo-Pacific.

The development of new sampling strategies was necessary to collect bacteria from various depths.

A simple device called 'snapper' was invented for collecting seabed samples.

Over 18,000 strains of bacteria have been isolated and preserved for study.

Environmental substances have been used as antibiotics for nearly a century.

The misuse of antibiotics has led to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

The consequences of antibiotic resistance include longer hospital stays and higher medical costs.

The development of new drugs is crucial to stay ahead of evolving bacterial resistance.

Patients can experience severe side effects or life-threatening reactions to antibiotics.

The era of effective antibiotics was relatively short, from the 1940s to the 1980s.

Sir Alexander Fleming warned about the misuse of antibiotics leading to drug resistance.

Traditional sources like soil have been largely exhausted for new antibiotic discovery.

Beach sand samples revealed a bacterium producing a new type of antibiotic compound.

A new antibiotic, 'an terasa Meissen', showed high efficacy against MRSA in animal models.

Developing new antibiotics is challenging due to high costs and short usage duration.

There is a lack of national focus and funding for the development of new antibiotics in the U.S.

The speaker's team has discovered several potential antibiotics and cancer drugs.

Major pharmaceutical companies have stopped researching new antibiotics due to financial risks.

The speaker emphasizes the importance of continuing the search for new antibiotics despite the challenges.

Transcripts

the facts are our antibiotics that we

have are now becoming useless in

treating infectious diseases pneumonia

skin diseases upper respiratory diseases

lung infection if we don't do something

by 2025 more people will die from

infectious diseases than from cancer and

so we realized that the ocean is a

massive biomedical resource a new source

for drugs

so what's happening out there people go

to the hospital to have their appendix

taken out and they end up with a

Mersenne infection it's over 90%

resistant to antibiotics we're going to

get an epidemic of infectious diseases

in the next five years this is a serious

problem that we are not properly

addressing in the United States in 1973

I came down to Scripps oceanography and

I knocked on the door and I said I want

to develop chemical studies of life in

the sea I want to do some things that

people have not done in the beginning we

were just exploring police Central

America Palau in the indo-pacific Wow I

do have stories about being on board

ships when we were serious danger from

hurricanes serious weather conditions

we've also been attacked by pirates in

which the captain had to actually fire a

weapon at them what we've tried to do is

explore because we didn't know where the

most exciting microorganisms were found

in the ocean we looked at sea water we

then went to the bottom sediments and we

began to understand what's there but

then we realized that bacteria were

inside different plants and animals we

needed to develop sampling strategies to

collect samples beginning at 1,000

metres 3,000 feet

so we've developed simple tools like

this device which I would call a snapper

we'll wrap this from a boat and you hit

the bottom the jaw is closed bring it up

to the surface and you've got a nice

sample of material to work with

we have about 18,000 strains of bacteria

that we've isolated over the past 15

years we put them into cryo preservation

in each box our small tubes one strain

of bacteria we can then remove and begin

to unravel the complexity of what's in

that particular copper good morning will

nauseated okay so we have a plan for

your antibiotics the one for the more

serious infection the staph infection

you'll get that for six more weeks at

least get it down and then once we get

that infection down then you can go in

and have your surgery

these are environmental substances

they've been around for millennia in the

last 90 years we've harnessed them and

administer them in large scale to

patients

we're just unmasking them slowly and

slowly and the more antibiotics we use

you're then allowing the environment for

these antibiotic resistance the bacteria

to become more and more prevalent then

it starts off like this vicious cycle a

longer hospital stays and higher medical

costs the only way you can stay ahead of

this constant evolution is by developing

more drugs patients get side effects to

antibiotics all the time and if the

patient gets a life-threatening adverse

reaction to your one antibiotic left

then you're back to no antibiotics and

the consequences of obviously increasing

risk of dying from getting these things

I was born in a time when antibiotics

actually worked and that was you know

there's really brief window of time from

around the 1940s until around the 1980s

it really seemed like medicine had

conquered infectious disease I mean it

was Sir Alexander Fleming who said this

when he got the Nobel Prize you know he

said that if we use these antibiotics in

ways that are not medically necessary we

will provoke the emergence of these

drug-resistant strains of bacteria and

other pathogens we already are starting

to run out of drugs that are strong

enough and we now have 23,000 Americans

dying of drug resistant bacterial

infections every year

penicillin actonel mice and streptomycin

all of these drugs that we have today

came from scientists studying soil but

that resource after so many years of

intense study just began to diminish and

so we realized that the same

microorganisms that were in the soil

that generated the antibiotics are out

there but they're different one of my

workers was moving up and down the coast

and I said why don't you stop and just

take some beach sand we discovered the

bacterium that makes and through some

ison we discovered that it was very

active against Mercia and so we began to

study this microbe and finally pull the

compound from the complex mixture this

is one liter of seawater with nutrients

that we know are useful in growing

bacteria we discovered chemically a

brand new kind of structure not related

to any other kinds of antibiotics ever

discovered and very potent we called it

an terasa Meissen we did the experiment

a model where you inject rats with MRSA

methicillin-resistant Staph they're only

going to live for five or six days and

then you have a treatment group

treated with an threesome Isen in a way

that is similar or identical to how you

would treat a human and then we watched

85% of the animals survived they didn't

show any evidence of toxicity a critical

piece of information that allows you to

convince people that this could in

effect be a drug and so the question

then became how can we develop it

very few drug companies want to create

antibiotics it's a lot of money to do

the Rd what do you get out of that you

get a drug that's used for maybe a week

at most and which even though it saves

lives

people don't want to pay more than 100

bucks or so yeah we'll pay tens of

thousands of dollars for a cancer

treatment that might not even extend

life at all now what that means is if

that kind of infection is out in the

environment is really an end to medicine

as we know it

drug-resistant bacteria are one of the

most serious public health issues that

we face today despite President Obama

declaring an initiative to begin to work

on this horrible problem Congress has

not allocated funds to do so as of today

there is no national focus on the

development of new antibiotics

when you're looking at such a massive

resource out here you have to remember

that finding just those perfect

discoveries that are going to cure

infectious disease takes time takes

investment and there's risk you know a

typical drug for cancer in a

pharmaceutical industry would require

the involvement of over 200 people 300

500 million a billion dollars the kinds

of grant money that I can get are

$100,000 per year we found six or seven

good quality antibiotics in the last six

to eight years five cancer drugs two of

which are currently in clinical trials

in humans the major pharmaceutical

industry quit isolating new antibiotic

compounds they quit working with

microorganisms what an error in judgment

in my mind not to think about 75 80

percent of the surface of the earth

what's the alternative don't develop

anything don't discover anything new not

consider infectious diseases the massive

epidemic that it is going to be 70 80 90

thousand people dying in the US per year

our antibiotics that we have are now

becoming useless in treating infectious

diseases but should I quit should I not

keep trying to do so I don't think so

you