• Question: What was it like studying antibiotics?

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      Asked by Arjan to Daniela ?, ☣ Danna, Jonny, Juan, Lindsay on 10 Jun 2016.
      • Photo: Jonathan Hunter

        Jonathan Hunter answered on 10 Jun 2016:

        Hard work. Long hours. Soul destroying when everything doesn’t work.
        But absolutely fantastic when some unexpected, new or interesting happens!

      • Photo: Lindsay Robinson

        Lindsay Robinson answered on 11 Jun 2016:

        I haven’t actually worked on making antibiotics. I work on finding new drugs to treat different diseases but not yet antibiotics. Some antibiotics that we use today have been known for many years are found in natural substances like fungus and mould. There are newer antibiotics which do need chemists to make them though.

      • Photo: Danna Gifford

        Danna Gifford answered on 11 Jun 2016:

        I study how bacteria evolve when antibiotics are used to kill them. I sometimes find it surprising and a little scary how easily bacteria can evolve resistance to antibiotics. Some of my work involves trying to find ways to stop bacteria from evolving resistance, by e.g. using two different antibiotics at the same time.

      • Photo: Juan Ortiz

        Juan Ortiz answered on 12 Jun 2016:

        Although my work hasn’t been focused on antibiotics, I have used them as a tool to study bacteria (a type of microbe). But how? When I want to find bacteria that are resistant to an antibiotic I just have to take a big population of bacteria and add the antibiotic to them. All the bacteria will die except those which are resistant to the antibiotic. With antibiotics finding a needle in a haystack becomes a piece of cake!!

      • Photo: Daniela Lobo

        Daniela Lobo answered on 16 Jun 2016:

        Hi Arjan,
        well, I don’t directly study antibiotics – I study quick ways of detecting bacteria that could be dangerous to you in, for example, a bioterrorism attack. This requires a high dose of hard work and commitment, a good tablespoon of curiosity and the capacity to accept failures and learn from them.

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