(insects chirping)
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] They're on the
hunt in tropical rainforests
and frigid caves.
- Oh my goodness,
who can live in here?
- [Narrator] In the
mouths of giant lizards.
- [Kevin] Good dragon.
(Komodo dragon hisses)
- [Narrator] And on the
fur of forest creatures.
Scientists are hunting
for new antibiotics
because the ones we have
are rapidly failing.
- We are potentially
returning to the dark days,
the pre-antibiotic era
where people would die
even from a simple infection.
- [Jen] He couldn't
even push his button
to get a nurse to come in.
- [Narrator] Already
thousands of people are dying
of diseases easily
cured a decade ago.
- I thought well who
dies from an infection?
- [Narrator] Even the
most powerful antibiotics
are failing.
- It's been tough.
It's been tough on not
only me but my family.
- [Narrator] The search
for new antibiotics
is now an urgent challenge,
drawing scientists
to remote corners of the planet.
(soft suspenseful music)
The rainforest canopy of Panama.
Inside this forest lives
a creature so placid
you could say the
forest lives on it.
Below the canopy,
biologist Bryson Voirin
is leading colleagues
to a giant fig tree.
- [Bryson] Most of the life
here is in the top of the canopy
and it's really remote
and difficult to access.
- [Narrator] Drug
researcher Roger Linington
is hoping to meet a
shy forest dweller
whose fur is camouflaged
green with microbial life.
- [Roger] The real
motivation for this study
is to see where the niche
environments such as this
- [Bryson] Yeah right there.
- [Roger] can yield new
classes of compounds
for antibiotic development.
- [Narrator] Bryson
Voirin is a canopy expert.
(sling pops)
(suspenseful music)
And conveniently
quite the climber.
- Right here behind me is
a female three-toed sloth
and you can really
clearly see her three toes
and three fingers on her claws.
Now sloths are sort of one of
the mysteries of the jungle.
They're a very weird
organism that lives
only in the canopy,
and they have all sorts
of different animals
living on their backs.
They've got a moth that
lives in their fur.
They have an algae that's only
found in their fur as well.
They're like a whole
little micro ecosystem
up here in the canopy.
- [Narrator] Sloths
are famously difficult
to unhook from a tree branch.
(leaves rustling)
- And I'm gonna bring
her to the ground
for a few minutes so that
Roger can take a hair sample.
(suspenseful music)
All right.
The idea for this
study actually came
as sort of a joke with
some friends of mine.
We were talking about how
there was a whole world
that lives on the sloth.
There's all these insects
and algaes and things
and she was saying, you
know, you should really look
and send some
samples to this lab
that's looking at
wild prospecting
to try and see if
there's antibiotics.
It's a little bit feisty.
(sloth growling)
- A little bit feisty.
- So I'll hold her
just like a baby.
- [Narrator] Roger
Linington's lab
at the University of
California has already found
interesting compounds
in sloth fur
from and earlier expedition.
- Every niche environment
is different in its own way.
We would expect that the
populations of microorganisms
in each sloth will be
fundamentally different
to one another.
Some of the fungi from
the fur of the sloth
had drug like properties
which were very different
to the current
battery of antibiotics
available in the clinic,
so it was very encouraging.
- [Narrator] Linington is
part of a topnotch team
of North American and
Panamanian scientists
searching together for
potential new drugs
from the natural world.
(soft suspenseful music)
Chemists have had little success
in making synthetic antibiotics,
so it's back to nature.
The day after his
sloth adventure,
Linington heads
out to Coiba Island
off the Pacific coast of Panama
with the head of the
research team, Bill Gerwick.
- Panama is amazing.
It's sort of this juxtaposition
of incredible biodiversity.
- [Narrator] Panama is
special because it's
at the junction of four
big pieces of the planet.
Plants and animals
from two oceans
and two continents meet here.
- Areas that have
high biodiversity
are areas where the organisms
are in great competition
with one another.
It's that competition that
underlie the production
of the very bioactive
molecules that we've been
discovering and working with.
(soft suspenseful music)
The island of Coiba is really
quite a remarkable place.
Its forest is
essentially intact.
The reason for this is that
it's been a penal colony
for about a century.
- [Narrator] Now Coiba
Island is a national park
with forests and reefs
relatively untouched.
- This expedition is
all aimed at looking
at marine sediments and
specifically the bacteria
that grow within those sediments
and then using those
bacteria as a source
of inspiration for
new antibiotics.
- That's the buddy system.
(soft suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] The world's
oceans are rich in microbes.
These tiniest of life
forms make up 90%
of living matter on the planet
and they constantly battle
each other for turf.
It's the weapons they
use that can serve us
as antibiotics.
- [Bill] Oh every
environment that you go to
has slightly
different conditions
in terms of current and
nutrients and predators
and all these other factors.
And so every time you go to
a new place you can expect
that the microbial
community will be different.
- [Narrator] The
team is searching
for new antibiotics
because our misuse
of these miracle drugs has
rendered many almost useless.
- Antibiotic resistance
is when a microorganism
no longer responds to something
it previously was killed by,
namely an antibiotic.
When we have an infection it's
actually billions of cells,
and if even one of those
cells has a slight mutation,
a slight variation that
then allows it to survive
in the presence of
that antibiotic,
a whole new group of
cells will develop
that similarly will be
resistant to the antibiotic
and this of grave concern.
(soft ominous music)
- [Narrator] There are
hundreds of millions
of prescriptions for
antibiotics written each year
and there are millions of
bacteria in each infection.
So there are countless
chances for the bugs to mutate
and build resistance.
All of this is taking us to the
brink of global catastrophe.
In 2014 the World Health
Organization warned
a post-antibiotic era in
which common infections
and minor injuries can kill
is a very real possibility
for the 21st century.
Alexander Fleming
discovered penicillin,
the original antibiotic,
after seeing just how deadly
infections could be
during World War I.
- And we saw thousands
of septic wounds
but we could do very
little for them.
- [Narrator] Fleming warned
that misuse of antibiotics
could lead to
resistance very quickly.
Sure enough, resistance
has been accelerating
at an alarming rate ever since.
Streptomycin was
created in 1943.
Resistance showed up in 1958.
Tetracycline was
created in 1947.
Resistance, 1953.
Methicillin appeared in 1960,
resistance only two years later.
The modus operandi of bacteria
is what doesn't kill us
makes us stronger.
And we're making things
worse by taking antibiotics
even when they do no good.
We can't seem to get it straight
that antibiotics only
kill bacteria not viruses.
For what kind of
illnesses would you think
your doctor would
prescribe antibiotics?
- Uh, the flu I'm guessing.
(buzzer buzzes)
- Infections in the body.
- [Narrator] Which kind of
infections, bacterial or viral?
- Oh, I guess, I
forget which one it is.
Well it's one or the
other. I guess viral?
(buzzer buzzes)
- Bacterial or viral?
(buzzer buzzes)
- Not viruses.
Bacterial infections
I would think.
(bell dings)
- A lot of the infections
from here on up,
from your bronchi on up,
are driven by viruses.
All colds, most
coughs, influenza,
most middle ear infection,
most sinusitis gets by fine
without antibiotics.
- [Narrator] Dr.
David Patrick heads
a public education campaign
called Do Bugs Need Drugs?
It's goal, to reduce the
misuse of antibiotics.
- There are a lot of
pressures on a doctor
to prescribe sometimes.
There's time pressure
in the office.
It's possible that a
parent will come in
with full expectation and
a lot of heavy pressure
to prescribe and antibiotic.
- [Narrator] Even when
doctors request lab tests,
in the meantime
they often prescribe
a wide spectrum
antibiotic that can kill
many kinds of bacteria
including the good kind.
- Woo!
Just went for
a root canal and after
I got the procedure done
my tooth was infected
and so the dentist
prescribed me Clindamycin.
Took Clindamycin for a
week and then it was a week
after I'd been off of
Clindamycin that I got diarrhea.
Wanna go down the slide?
- [Narrator] Krista
Kilback found out
she had a C. difficile infection
which can cause severe diarrhea.
- [Krista] Woo!
Good job.
- Clostridium difficile
is an infection that
happens often times
when you take antibiotics
and those antibiotics
don't just necessarily
attack the bugs
that they're supposed to attack,
but they also have an
impact on all the bacteria
that are in your gut.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] Many
kinds of bacteria
inside Krista's colon
were killed off,
but not the C. difficile
because it's developed
a resistance to
most antibiotics,
including Clindamycin.
- [Alex] How are you?
- Good thanks.
- It's good to see ya again.
- [Narrator] In fat, friendly
bacteria inside Krista
were probably keeping the
C. difficile in check.
When the friendly bugs were
killed off by antibiotics
the C. difficile took over.
This is where the
antibiotic story
becomes a little more complex.
New antibiotics are
desperately needed,
but many researchers
are concluding
that using antibiotics
to fight every infection
is counterproductive.
Bill Gerwick has thought
a lot about this,
even while he's searching
for new antibiotic compounds.
- We're coming to
realize that we have
some trillion cells in our body
and we have about
10 times that number
of bacterial cells sitting here.
About 15 pounds
of any human being
is actually bacterial cells.
So we're not just individuals,
we're sorta communities
walking around,
and when we disturb
that community
with an antibiotic maybe
we treat an infection
but we disturb that
community enormously
and it gives rise to
other kinds of diseases.
- [Narrator] Like Krista's
crippling infection.
Not even Vancomycin, the
Cadillac of antibiotics,
can cure her.
(child laughing)
- She got better on Vancomycin
with a couple of courses,
but unfortunately the
pattern was every time
she would get Vancomycin, she'd
get it for a couple weeks,
she'd get better, she'd
get back to normal
and then her symptoms
would come back again.
- I've actually tried
also another antibiotic
called DIFICID and that
was the same story.
It just always comes back
after two to three weeks.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] Without an
effective antibiotic,
Krista's looking at
some tough options.
- Woo, good job.
Okay, worst case, you
pretty much take out
your large intestine
and you'd be left with
is your small intestine,
or you essentially
just put a bag on
and you have to live
with a bag the
rest of your life.
- [Narrator] How rough
has all this been on you?
- It's been tough.
It's been tough on not
only me but my family.
Yeah.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] People
like Krista Kilback
are in desperate need of
new effective antibiotics.
And so the hunt continues.
After his dives, Roger
Linington dabs the sediments
he's harvested
onto Petri dishes.
He hopes any bacteria
captured in the samples
will multiply.
Meanwhile, two other
members of the team,
fungus expert Betsy
Arnold and plant expert
Alicia Ibanez, come ashore
onto Panama's Coiba Island.
- [Alicia] So there could be
any kind of fungi
here on this rock?
- There'll be some, yeah.
Typically some
freshwater fungi that--
- [Alicia] Oh, look at this.
- Right. (Alicia mumbles)
- A little isopod.
- Isopod, yeah.
- Yeah.
- [Narrator] Arnold
searches the world for fungi
that might make new drugs.
- Penicillin really
is the poster child
for antibiotics
produced by fungi.
The number of people
saved by the existence
of penicillin as an
antibiotic is astronomical.
Okay yeah, let's look.
- [Narrator] Arnold wonders
if another penicillin
could be found in the
rare plant communities
of Coiba Island.
Ibanez knows Coiba's
plants better than anyone
and wants to show Arnold
one that's unique.
- It's just on the
west coast of Coiba.
We haven't found
it anywhere else.
- Wow.
Yeah, so it's pretty
habitat specific.
- [Narrator] Ibanez has
already supplied Arnold
with fungi from this plant
for analysis in her lab,
but this is the first time
Arnold has seen the plant
in its natural habitat.
- It's one of the most
interesting plants
that we've investigated
with regard
to the chemical compounds
produced by the fungi
inside that plant species.
The genus is Desmotes.
It's a member of
the citrus family
and it grows on these really
steep slopes above streams.
We had to be careful
not to fall in.
There are some crocodile
possibilities down there.
Any of the leaves
that we're looking at
will have 20 or 30 different
fungal species living inside
and they need to eat the
products of the plant,
and so when you've got
two fungi going after
the same material, then they
will fight against each other
and in fighting against each
other they'll produce compounds
that will limit the growth
of one or the other species.
And it's those compounds
that then have
antibiotic potential.
So you can sort of see
where the lichens begin.
This is a pressing need.
We need to go out to
places that we've never
looked into before and
capture those organisms,
look at their antibiotics
and retain the organisms
in collections so that when
our technologies improve
decades down the
line we might be able
to tap antibiotics that
now we can't even imagine
discovering from
that same material.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] From a
remote beach in Panama
to a cave beneath a
British Columbia valley,
the hunt it is on,
taking some scientists
beyond their comfort zone.
- Actually I have fear.
I'm a microbiologist.
I'm not a caver.
- That was probably
two years ago?
- Yeah, it's gotta be.
That's a good one of him.
- [Jen] Yeah, nice smile.
- [Narrator] Jen
Quarrell lost her dad.
Darlene Quarrell lost a brother
to an infection that
antibiotics could not cure.
John Quarrell initially went
to Regina General Hospital
because of complications
from his diabetes.
- Mr. Quarrell came in
with a severe problem
with his right leg
and the leg couldn't
be saved so he ended up
with an amputation.
- [Narrator] But soon Quarrell
was back in the hospital
with more circulation problems.
- He would be good
for a little while,
and then he'd go downhill.
It was up and down.
- Towards the end of
that hospitalization
he suddenly and quite
unexpectedly became unwell
with a fever.
(ominous music)
- [Narrator] Quarrell
had contracted
the drug resistant
superbug MRSA.
He was prescribed
various antibiotics
and finally Vancomycin,
but even it couldn't
stop the infection.
- One of the heart
valves had evidence
of a bacterial infection
on the heart valve.
- So many times my
Auntie Darlene and I
went to the hospital and he
was just laying in his bed,
like dangling off the bed.
He couldn't even push his button
to get a nurse to come in.
- [David] It's the people who
are already weak and frail
who tend to pick it
up in the first place.
- Dr. Kopriva phoned me
and said he has no hope
that my dad would
survive the infection.
I never believed
that you could die
from an infection like that.
- [Narrator] Six weeks
after the phone call,
Jen's father died.
With his compromised
immune system
John Quarrell was typical
of most of MRSA's victims.
(suspenseful music)
As many as 12,000 people die
of antibiotic resistant
infections every year in Canada.
Like hospitals everywhere,
Regina General constantly
battles these superbugs.
- We've had outbreaks
of antibiotic resistant
organisms in the hospital
and those require
huge amounts of resources.
- [Narrator] A large section
of the hospital's ground floor
is dedicated to
infection control.
- The surveillance component
is becoming evermore important.
The thousands of screens
that patients in the hospital
have to go through, throwing
out lots of supplies,
the intensive cleaning efforts
from our housekeeping
department.
- [Narrator] But inevitably,
resistant bacteria will
occasionally get through.
Hospitals desperately
need whole new families
of antibiotics,
drugs the superbugs
have never encountered before.
(suspenseful music)
Perhaps they will come
from beneath the earth.
- [Naowarat] It's almost
like the first time
in every cave that I go in.
Each cave is so unique.
- [Narrator] Microbiologist
Naowarat Cheeptham
is one of a very small
handful of people worldwide
who hunt for potential
drugs from the bacteria
and fungi of caves.
- [Naowarat] What we have
seen so far in our lab
is the fact that there
is a great promise.
- Okay guys, this is it.
- [Narrator] Cheeptham
and her team have come
to the Chilliwack Valley
in British Columbia
to investigate a new site.
Caver Rob Wall discovered
the iron curtain cave
in 1993 and he's invited
Cheeptham to explore it.
- [Rob] There's a handle here
to grab onto.
- Yes.
- And then to lower yourself
onto the ladder down below.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] It's dangerous
work crawling around
this slippery cave with
only the erratic light
of the headlamps and
Cheeptham is still an amateur.
- Actually I have fear.
I'm a microbiologist.
I'm not a caver by training.
(suspenseful music)
Studying these type
of extreme habitats
give us tremendous
information about life
that has been exposed
to extreme conditions.
These bacterias have been in
here for million of years.
They have evolved and
adapt to these kind
of low nutrients conditions.
- [Narrator] Cheeptham
normally explores
dry lava tube caves.
- This one is totally
different in many ways.
First of all it's wet.
I never been this wet caving.
- [Narrator] Cheeptham's
team takes samples
from the cave's textured walls.
Cavers have whimsically
used soda shop lingo
to name the cave's decorations.
There's popcorn,
soda straws, and moon milk,
all of which can harbor life.
- This is interesting
because there are not
many organic matters around
here so when you think
as a microbiologist
you look at this
and you say oh my goodness,
who can live in here?
But really when you
look closer and look
in a more microscopic level,
it just full of life,
full of potential.
- [Narrator] Some bacterial
samples will be left behind
for a few months to see
if they grow differently
than the samples
coming back to the lab.
(suspenseful music)
- [Naowarat] We don't
fully understand
the relationships
of microorganisms
and the minerals in
different types of cave.
- [Narrator] In her lab at
Thompson Rivers University
Cheeptham uses an
electron microscope
to search amidst the
limestone for anything
that looks organic.
- So let me see,
that is 20 micron.
We would like to see
whether we can detect
bacterial activity in real time.
What are they doing in there?
Are they actually
using those mineral
as the source of their energy?
Oh.
- Not pretty.
- Yes.
And look at all those.
What was that? Like all that.
- Well, I don't know.
- Look at that, look at that.
(scientist laughs)
- I don't know yet.
(both laughing)
- Boy, that would be
lucky to see.
- Ann just gets so excited
when she's on this.
It's fun.
- [Narrator] Learning how
these bacteria survive
in the cave could tell her
what antibacterial
weapons they use.
(suspenseful music)
Students work long
hours separating out
the components of samples
brought back from the cave.
- Bacteria are like us.
They actually so unique.
Each of them like to
eat different thing,
like to grow on different thing.
They like to live
in a community.
We can't study community,
so we try to isolate
each of them out.
As you can see, from
that many plates
it could turn out to be a
thousand different isolate.
- [Narrator] Once they've
isolated a promising
cave bacterium, they'll
place that on a plate
with bacteria
dangerous to humans,
then they'll watch
for the formation
of an inhibition zone, or
dead zone, around the sample.
This indicates that that
bacterium can kill the pathogen.
But this is just an early
step in the development
of an antibiotic.
Cheeptham often
sends her samples
for further study to Julian
Davies' microbiology lab.
- There's no doubt
that she has a gold mine of
interesting bacteria and
bacteria that have never
been looked at before.
Some are quite active
as antibiotics.
- [Narrator] But once
interesting bacteria are found,
you still have to
be able to grow
and mass produce
the active molecule.
That's not always easy.
And after the right molecule
is built into a potential drug
by a pharmaceutical
firm, it has to be tested
on animals and
finally on people.
Davies despairs of any of
these promising compounds
ever becoming drugs.
- [Julian] The major reason
why pharmaceutical companies
are not involving themselves
in antibiotic discovery
is that they don't make
any money out of it.
- [Narrator] For drug
companies the big profits
are made by treating
chronic conditions.
- The pharmaceutical companies,
they make their money
out of diseases of old people
more than anything else.
I mean I'm not
criticizing them for this.
They have their
commercial organizations.
- [Narrator] And the
irony of antibiotics is
the less they're used,
the more useful they are
and that gets in the
way of corporate profit.
Julian Davies believes
governments should step up.
- And I think there
has to be more money
funding small companies.
Small companies can
make money on drugs
that have a relatively
small market.
- [Narrator] Cubist
Pharmaceuticals
is one of those
small drug companies.
They've been
developing antibiotics
for almost 25 years in
Lexington, Massachusetts.
- Hey, Steve,
how are you?
- Good.
- [Narrator] Steve
Gilman is head
of research and development.
- We have a staff
that's very experienced in
developing antibacterials
and being able to
pick the winners
from all the possible
opportunities out there.
- [Narrator] So why is Cubist
able to stay in business
making antibiotics
when larger companies
aren't up for the challenge?
- We spend nearly
25% of our revenue
on research and development.
And at the same time,
compared to other companies,
we spend much less on
sales and marketing
and administrative expenses.
- [Narrator] To make
any profit at all,
their drugs can
be very expensive,
like fidaxomicin,
brand name DIFICID,
designed specifically
to treat C. difficile.
It was developed
from a soil bacterium
discovered in 1967
and it took 30 years
to bring it to market.
The cost for one full treatment?
About $3,000.
(somber music)
It's a slow, costly process
so now governments are
stepping in with incentives.
The U.S. has announced
a five year plan
to combat antibiotic resistance.
Canada and the European Union
have invested $30 million
into the problem.
And in Britain the
public was asked to vote
for a worthy cause to
receive a research prize.
- The 10 million pound
science prize is antibiotics.
(audience applauds)
(audience cheers)
- [Narrator] 10 million
pounds to the researcher
who can develop a
cheap quick test
to see if a patient has a
bacterial or viral infection.
But are these incentives enough
to rebuild our antibiotic
storehouse in time?
(suspenseful music)
Microbiologist Cheeptham
is returning to the cave
to collect her
remaining Petri dishes.
- [Naowarat] This field of
drug discoveries actually take
a lot of times and
also it costs a lot.
- [Narrator] She knows
she's one small player
in a drug system
that seems to her
to be unable to deliver.
- As a scientist I
feel very frustrated.
It's just beyond
my understanding.
At the end of the day
it has to be profit.
Everything has to be
about to make the money,
but that is my opinion
in terms of a scientist,
however as a mom as a
six and a half years old,
I truly feel
devastated if I have,
if you have all this
information and know that no one
wants to pay for drug
discovery research.
So what are we as
a human species?
(soft ominous music)
- [Narrator] While
Cheeptham keeps searching
for new antibiotics,
up on the surface
we continue to misuse
the ones we have.
A big part of that
misuse happens in
industrial agriculture.
Incredibly, up to 80%
of antibiotics are used
not on people, but
on farm animals
with the intent of
fattening them faster
and keeping them healthy
in crowded conditions.
This widespread
use of antibiotics
is contributing to
antibiotic resistance.
- [Amee] It's becoming
a serious problem.
It's just getting bigger
and bigger and bigger.
- [Narrator] Amee Manges
studies the connection
between the farm
use of antibiotics
and drug resistant
bacteria in our food.
- When you apply low
doses of antibiotics
you eliminate the
susceptible bugs
in the environment
and you're allowing
the resistance ones to
develop and be amplified,
you know, overgrow
in that environment
and be disseminated.
So that's really the issues.
We are not treating one animal
and helping that sick animal.
Basically using it in
that entire environment.
(cows mooing)
(soft suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] There's
always been some chance
of bringing E. coli home
from the grocery store,
but now the bugs you
eat are also more likely
to be drug resistant.
- The highest burden of
contamination is in poultry
and chicken and
turkey especially.
Depending on how the
meat is processed,
the final retail meat that
you take off the shelves
may have more or
less bacteria on it.
And the more intensively
the antibiotics are used
on the farm, the more likely
the bacteria that remain
on the retail meat
will be drug resistant.
The precautionary use of
antibiotics on farm animals
was banned outright in
the European Union in 2006
but the practice
is still allowed
on American and Canadian farms.
(suspenseful music)
Of course there are many
different kinds of farms.
On this farm the
animals manufacture
their own antibiotics.
(alligator hissing)
(soft suspenseful music)
The next great antibiotic
could be hiding
in a weird an exotic place,
far beneath the Earth's surface,
on the fur of a
three-toed sloth,
or how about an alligator farm?
(ominous music)
- [Monique] We thought
maybe we could find
a very evolutionarily
ancient animal
that maybe would have a very
strong, innate immune system
having survived for
millions of years.
- [Narrator] Monique
Van Hoek searches
for antibiotics in the
blood of alligators.
- We can't tell age by
looking at these animals.
Bigger doesn't
always mean older.
- [Monique] This
place is amazing.
There's 40 or so
alligators in this pit.
There are many other
wonderful displays.
- [Narrator] This is
Van Hoek's first visit
to the source of the
blood she's been studying.
Florida's St. Augustine
Alligator Farm
houses hundreds of alligators
and other kinds of crocodiles.
It's also home to a
couple of Komodo dragons.
- [Monique] I'm very interested
in the Komodo dragons.
They are also
evolutionarily ancient.
And these animals
are very large.
They are six to nine feet long.
They're the largest
lizards on the planet.
- [Narrator] Van
Hoek is hoping to get
not just more alligator
blood but also
some Komodo dragon saliva.
(Komodo dragon hissing)
- [Woman] Oh my gosh.
- They will eat carrion, which
is dead and rotting flesh,
and the other interesting thing
about Komodo dragons
is that they are known,
if they sample the saliva
of the Komodo dragon, it has
more than 50 species of
bacteria in their saliva,
and many of these are pathogens,
dangerous bacteria that can
infect mammals for example,
so we think that the
Komodo dragon also has
very robust, innate immunity.
- [Narrator] Van Hoek isn't
looking for bacteria or fungi.
She's searching for a
special defensive molecule
built into the immune
system of ancient animals.
- An antimicrobial peptide
is a very small protein
and these are made by the
bodies of most animals
as part of what we call
our innate immune system.
Antimicrobial
peptides kill bacteria
by attacking their membranes.
They kind of glom onto
the bacterial membrane
and they punch holes into
the bacterial membrane
and this causes the bacteria
to blow up and thus die.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] Kent Vliet,
the zoo's science advisor,
will help Van Hoek get her
vial of alligator blood.
Curator, Kevin Torregrosa,
will do the wrestling.
- All right.
- Let's go get a gator.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] Lots
to choose from.
Might as well go
for the small ones.
(suspenseful music)
(soft ominous music)
- We want to use these
peptides as a scaffold
to maybe build or create
the next generation
of antibiotics.
- [Ken] And there's the blood.
- So we got a tube and
a half of wonderful,
precious alligator blood
for our experiments.
- [Kevin] Tuja.
That's a good lizard.
- [Narrator] Now the
bigger challenge,
the Komodo dragon
for some saliva.
They'll try the male first.
He's more docile.
(Komodo dragon hisses)
By the way, the mouse
is already dead.
- [Kevin] (groans) Ya oughta
get something, all right.
- [Monique] There ya go.
- Nice, dirty lizard mouth.
- [Narrator] At her George
Mason University lab
in Virginia, Van Hoek has
been able to isolate peptides
from the gator blood.
Next, a test on worms.
They infect the worms and then
inject them with the peptide.
Van Hoek can judge the
effectiveness of the peptides
by the number of
surviving worms.
There are some
dramatic findings.
- We test against six
different bacteria
and we found at
least five peptides
that are very, very
good at killing
all of the different bacteria
that we've tested them against,
so we're really excited
about our results.
- [Narrator] Van Hoek
is tantalizingly guarded
about the Komodo dragon saliva.
- We have found some
Komodo peptides,
but I'm not really ready
to share that with you yet.
(laughs) We're very excited.
(Komodo dragon hisses)
- [Narrator] But it's a long
way from a promising peptide
to a new antibiotic.
(suspenseful music)
So some teams of scientists
are looking for shortcuts
by breathing new
life into old drugs.
At Boston University they're
borrowing from ancient medicine
by using silver to make
our existing arsenal
of antibiotics stronger.
- Too much silver
can be a problem.
You're body doesn't well process
silver and so it can lead
to very nasty reactions
and can itself
cause somebody to be ill.
One of the advantages
that we discovered
is that you could actually use
silver in very low amounts,
non-toxic levels, as a way to
boost existing antibiotics.
- [Narrator] Even the
best antibiotics we have
like Vancomycin,
have a tough time
combating a class of
bacteria called gram-negative
because those bugs have
an extra protective shell.
Silver can come to the rescue.
- We have challenges
finding molecules
that can get inside those.
When we discovered
that silver will change
the permeability of the
membrane in gram-negatives
like E. coli, we
had the hypothesis
that maybe you could use
this to enable Vancomycin
to get into the cells and kill.
And we in fact found
not only in the dish
could silver in small
amounts make Vanco effective,
but it also worked well in mice.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] Any new
improved Vancomycin
wouldn't be ready in time
to help Krista Kilback.
On her doctor's advice
she's going to try
a very different solution.
- It was actually
very easy to do
that I actually didn't believe
that it was gonna work.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] Krista Kilback
has struggled for months
with a C. difficile
intestinal infection.
Her doctor, Alex Wong, has tried
all the antibiotics available.
Nothing has worked.
But there's one
unusual option left.
- Now she's basically
on Vancomycin as we wait
for a fecal transplant.
- [Narrator] A fecal transplant
is just what it sounds like.
- It's literally taking
someone else's poop,
which theoretically has a
much more healthy composition
of sort of good bacteria,
and literally instilling
or infusing that
either via an enema
or via some sort of
endoscopy type procedure
into Krista's colon so that
we essentially repopulate
her colon with good bacteria.
- [Narrator] Krista was
willing to give it a try,
but unfortunately the
transplant had to be postponed.
Health Canada defined the
microbiota in the feces
as a drug and declared
that fecal transplants
could only be done as
part of a clinical trial.
So Krista decided to perform
the fecal transplant at home.
The good news?
It completely cleared up
her C. difficile infection.
- I had the best
possible outcome.
I'm able to eat anything I want.
I don't have any
stomach issues anymore.
I'm pretty much I would
say back to what I was
prior to this happening,
so I feel really fortunate.
- [Narrator] Although it
wasn't available for Krista,
there is another
unorthodox treatment
that might well have helped her.
It's called phage therapy.
(virus booms)
Each strain of these
bizarre looking viruses
called bacteria phages
kills specific bacteria.
This treatment has been
used in Russia and Georgia
for 90 years, but it's never
been fully accepted elsewhere.
- The advantage of phage
in today's world is that
they're highly specific,
species specific, and in
some cases strain specific.
- [Narrator] Because
they are very fussy
about what bacteria
they inhabit and kill,
bacteria phages won't kill
off the friendly bugs,
and Jim Collins
has shown that they
can work against stubborn
bacteria called biofilms.
- So the plaque on your
teeth is a biofilm.
The stuff on the side
of a ship is a biofilm.
The stuff in your sink, in
your drain is a biofilm.
The bugs in biofilms
are a thousand times
more resistant to antibiotics
than free swimming bugs, one.
Two, bugs like to form
biofilms on anything
we put in somebody's body.
So if it's a catheter, if
it's an artificial knee,
an artificial hip,
pacemaker for your heart,
the number one risk
is not the procedure.
The number one risk
now is you're gonna get
a biofilm infection.
What we did was
engineer bacteria phage
to break up biofilms.
- [Narrator] Like silver,
these viruses might also
be used to boost the strength
of existing antibiotics.
- And we showed that when
you delivered those phage
with existing antibiotics,
you could boost
their killing efficacy,
of the antibiotics,
a hundred fold to 10,000 fold.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] If those
preliminary findings hold up,
it will be an incredibly
useful discovery
whether it's used on today's
antibiotics or tomorrow's.
- As scientists we
really feel an obligation
to develop new antibiotics
as best as we can
and to contribute
to the resource of antibiotics
that have helped humanity.
- I think the situation is
getting more and more grim
really with each year.
We are increasingly
seeing infections
that are not treatable, and
so those start spreading.
We could be in dire straits.
- I firmly believe
that we will not
solve the problem unless we do
find new antibiotics.
We can not control resistance,
but we can control the use
of brand new antibiotics.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] And so
the antibiotic hunters
continue to comb the wild world
for promising new compounds.
- That's the colors
we're looking for?
- Oh yeah.
You know it's this.
Hunting for new antibiotics
is an incredible adventure
and it's also
incredibly productive.
As long as we have
wild environments
with biodiversity, we have
a chance for discovery.
(dramatic music)
(suspenseful music)
