Kirsty the Scientist

Following my post yesterday - #scicomm reviews: Michael Mosley vs the Superbugs - I wanted to take a closer look at the potential alternatives currently being researched to combat antibiotic resistance. What might we be using when we run out of antibiotics?   So let's take a step back for a minute - What are antibiotics and why is antibiotic resistance such a problem?  Antibiotics are drugs that kill bacteria or prevent them from reproducing or spreading - treating or preventing bacterial infections. Most people first take antibiotics but antibiotics are used for much more than helping those at the GP surgery. Modern medicine would be unrecognisable without antibiotics - they are used to prevent bacterial infections to keep surgery and transplantation safe as well as for immunocompromised people who cannot fight infections themselves, such as cancer patients who are treated with chemotherapy or radiotherapy or patients with autoimmune diseases who take immunosuppressive dr...

One of the things I'm really excited to introduce as part of my #kirstyblogseverydayinjune challenge is a new series of posts - #scicomm reviews. I love watching a good documentary or reading a good book that covers science in a non-academic way. It's relaxing, fun and introduces me to areas of science I don't study and become fascinated by, or areas I do and love to see portrayed in a different way (and see how accurate I think they did it!).  So the first thing I'd like to review from my #scicomm perspective is a recent BBC TV programme - Michael Mosley vs the Superbugs . The programme discussed antibiotic resistance and some of the new research exploring ways to avoid using broad spectrum antibiotics. And I thought it was fantastic.  The show opened with a very visual, if a little gross/awesome, representation of the skin microbiota - the different types of bacteria that live on human skin, completely natural and harmless in healthy people. The show's...