• Question: How close are you to creating an alternative treatment that could replace antibiotics?

    Asked by 977mcrk46 to Ananthi, Emma, Christopher, Ashley on 5 Nov 2017. This question was also asked by 635mcrk46, 634mcrk26.
    • Photo: Ananthi Ramachandran

      Ananthi Ramachandran answered on 5 Nov 2017:

      It takes years and years to do this and I’m nowhere near the end yet. At the moment I am just doing lot of small experiments in the lab. This is the first stage. Once we are happy with this the experiments get more and more complicated because we want to try and copy what goes on in a human without using a human. Only when we are happy that it works and everything is 100% safe can we then test it in humans in what is called clinical trials. This is repeated many times and eventually if all is ok it gets released. You will definitely hear about it on the news if this happens!

    • Photo: Emma Stevenson

      Emma Stevenson answered on 11 Nov 2017:

      We are definitely quite a long way off finding an alternative to antibiotics for most things, but for others we may be a bit closer. It takes decades and more of research to get to that point though, which is why we need all you young scientists to keep the research going !

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