WEBVTT

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What if you or a loved one
were diagnosed with an infectious disease:

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strep throat, an ear infection,
bacterial pneumonia,

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tuberculosis, or a sexually
transmitted disease?

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Now imagine that there are
no drugs that will work

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in effecting a cure for your infection.

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This is pretty scary.

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This is happening right now.

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There are people dying,
just like they used to before 1928,

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when penicillin was discovered.

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Are we about to fall
into the edge of the volcano?

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That would not be so good.

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What I would like to propose today

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is that we need to encourage
young and old scientists

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to explore new opportunities
and new therapies.

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Not just antibiotics.

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What else do we have?

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This is one of my heroes,

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a Scottish microbiologist who became
Sir Alexander Fleming.

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He discovered penicillin in 1928,

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and he was worried
about antibiotic resistance, too.

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Very, very concerned.

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Antibiotics? Well, what are they?

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Think of them as tiny chemical weapons
that are produced by bacteria and fungi,

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so that they can kill off competitors
in a nutrient-limited environment.

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These genes for antibiotics have been
around for 4 million years,

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long before we humans needed Z-Paks.

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So this is not a new thing.

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Antibiotic resistance can be
easily detected,

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and antibiotic resistance
is another weapon.

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Do you remember Spy vs Spy,
if you're old enough?

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So it's an escalation of weapons.

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The antibiotic producers,
that's one weapon.

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The antibiotic resistance
is another weapon.

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Antibiotic resistance is one
of those things that my students

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- and there's two of them -
I told you I was going to use the picture.

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You can detect antibiotic resistance
by growing plate cultures of bacteria.

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On the left you have E. coli;
on the right you have Staph aureus.

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And those little paper discs are treated
with antibiotics like penicillin,

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tetracycline, Vancomycin,
you guys did this, too.

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This is not new stuff.

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They did great, they did great by the way.

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When you look at antibiotic resistance,

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this means that we're
now facing Super Bugs.

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And I don't mean "super" in a good "Yay!",

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"super" in a scary way.

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What about bacteria?

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You've heard of MRSA,
Methicillin-resistant Staph Aureus.

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This one scares me.

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What about tuberculosis--

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multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis

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and extensively
drug-resistant tuberculosis.

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They're out there.

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These infections are very scary

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and they may take one of your loved ones.

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Or, God forbid, they'll take you.

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C. diff, Clostridium difficile--

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this one attacks 
the weakest of the patients,

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the elderly and the very, very young.

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Well, before we all get bummed out,
there have to be some good guys.

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There have to be.

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My training is soil microbiology
so I love dirt.

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Especially the dirt in my garden.

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This used to be my son's swing set,
but when he got too big,

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and the swing set started getting
tippy, I said, "You know what?

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It's going to be a garden box."

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Soil bacteria, soil fungi, they are
natural antibiotic producers.

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This is one avenue to explore.

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How about we start looking
at more soil samples

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on Mars, or other extraterrestrial places?

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Places even on Earth,

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slopes of volcanoes
where bacteria recolonize.

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I'm up for that, I'm totally
going to volunteer.

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This is cool, this is sci-fi,
this is Star Trek.

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How about we use viruses
that attack bacteria

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to do the dirty work for us?

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The T-even bacteriophages,
one of my favorites is T4.

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The "even" stands for the even number.

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What they do is they attack bacteria

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and kill them, without antibiotics.

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This technology has been around,
believe it or not, since the 1930s.

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It was discovered in France
by a microbiologist.

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The technology was advanced
to clinical applications in the 1950s.

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But there's a catch.

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This was behind the former Iron Curtain.

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This was in Russia, and Poland,
and the original Georgia.

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Not our Georgia.

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This technology is very effective.

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What if pharmaceutical companies

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could maybe advance the technology
to treat a patient with a virus,

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instead of an antibiotic
or another type of drug?

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There's a lot of philosophy.

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Viruses, most people think,
are bad or terrible or the bad guys.

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But the enemy of my enemy
is my friend, right?

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Well, not so fast.

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Sometimes, the technology does go awry,

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and the viruses will carry genes
that we don't understand.

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So, I told you I like Star Trek.

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["The enemy of my enemy is
the one I shall kill last."]

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It could happen.

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Think of all the wonderful,
spicy cuisines that we love:

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Thai food, Indian food,

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Vietnamese, Cambodian, Eastern European,

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West African, Caribbean, Tex Mex.

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Yay, Taco Tuesday!

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When you look at all
of the herbs and spices

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that have been studied,
but only by anecdotal evidence:

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turmeric, and peppers, and onions,
and garlic, and lemon grass,

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and allspice, and cinnamon,
and coffee, and tea,

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and beer.

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Yay!

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(Laughter)

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What would happen if more people
grew their own food?

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I garden a lot at home,
with my son and my partner.

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And all of these produce
came from our garden.

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No, you can't have any, I ate it already.

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But I'll trade you.

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What have you got to trade?

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We make beer, we make cheese,
we have chickens.

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They're awesome.

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Our little miniature dinosaurs.

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What about encouraging young scientists
to work on science fair projects

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that might advance one tiny field
of this type of research?

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So, when your child comes home,

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and they have their first
science project assignment ...

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Oh, God.

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Put a smile on your face.

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Stock up on those art supplies,
stock up on that alcohol,

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and say, "Yes, honey, we can do this!"

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My son's first project is due in January.

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Oh, please help me.

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When we went to Hawaii in February,
we really did go to a science fair.

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So look, even school children
in Hawaii do science fair projects.

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How bad would that be?

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Some of them were really, really good.

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You'll like this one.

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There's an anthropologist,

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an American anthropologist 
called Jeff Leach.

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And after his daughter was
diagnosed with Type I Diabetes,

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he moved to Tanzania, and he went native,

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living with a hunter-gatherer tribe.

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He ate what they ate--lots and lots
of fresh fruit and vegetables;

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lots and lots of roots 
that they had gathered.

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Not a whole lot of protein,

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unless that had hunted
and killed on that particular day.

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You also eat a lot of dirt

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when you consume 
fruit and vegetable material.

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But what he found in the year

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when he was taking
stool samples and blood samples,

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was that in humans, with a higher rate
of intestinal worm infections,

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they have a lower rate of inflammatory
and autoimmune diseases,

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like diabetes, like Crohn's Disease,

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like celiac, like irritable bowel,
like rheumatoid arthritis.

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Now, I'm not saying go out
and eat dirt and eat worms,

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unless that's what you're into.

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But what if some aspect
of the parasitic worms,

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like tapeworms and hook worms,
was actually beneficial to our health?

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Because the immune system is so busy

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modulating and controlling
the worm infection,

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that is doesn't have time to pay attention

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to the inflammation
elsewhere in our bodies.

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His project is called
The Human Food Project.

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He's got another one 
that you might be interested in,

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so Google it on break.

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It's called The American Gut Project.

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And for a small fee,

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from anywhere from $99 to $10,000,

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you can send in 
a fecal sample for testing.

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And he'll even do 
fecal samples from your dog,

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to study the American human gut, 
and dog gut as well.

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Tempting.

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I saved the best for last.

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FMT: Fecal Mass Transplantation.

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This is used in 2013, the United States

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approved this for treatment of C. diff.

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It actually works.

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When you take 
healthy donor fecal material,

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and you transplant it into a recipient,

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they have a better than 90% chance

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of recovery from their C. diff infection.

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It sound really gross.

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Because here's what you do.

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(Laughter)

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You can make a frozen poo pill,

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as long as the material has been
screened and freed of parasites;

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you can receive it by an endoscope;

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you can receive it by an enema.

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[How about a big bowl of "Poop Soup"?]

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(Laughter)

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This technology has been around
since the 4th or 5th century in China.

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There are recipes online for yellow soup.

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Last night, I went online
and did some research.

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There are Pinterest pins,

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(Laughter)

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for do-it-yourself at home.

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(Laughter)

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There are recipes.

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I haven't tried it yet.

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It's on my list for 2017.

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(Laughter)

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No, I haven't tried it.

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But what if, what if,

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your loved one 
has exhausted all the options?

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Antibiotics are not working,
they've had multiple surgeries.

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They're depressed, they're
in the hospital, they're losing hope.

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What if something this simple

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could actually help them?

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I'd do it. I'd do it in a heartbeat.

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I hope that with this very short talk
I have stimulated your imagination

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to at least learn more,
read more, find out more.

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Antibiotic therapy 
won't always be with us.

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But there are other avenues to explore.

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Yeah, I've read all those books.

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That's not my nightstand, I promise.

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But people look at you funny

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when you're waiting at an airport

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to get on a plane for a flight somewhere,

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and you have one
of these books in your hand.

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But then you mention that you heard
about it on NPR Science Friday,

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and then it's all good.

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It's all good, they're happy with you.

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Anyway, thank you for your kind attention.

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(Applause)