Placeholder Image

字幕列表 影片播放

  • UNDERNEATH THIS CANADIAN FOREST IS AN EXPANSIVE NETWORK OF CAVES,

  • THAT, UNTIL RECENTLY, HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BY HUMANS.

  • THESE RESEARCHERS ARE BRAVING PRECARIOUS AND CLAUSTROPHOBIC PASSAGEWAYS THIRTY FEET DEEP

  • IN THE EARTH — ALL IN A RACE TO DISCOVER WHAT COULD SAVE MILLIONS OF OUR LIVES.

  • ANN: You plunge yourself down into totally pitch darkness.

  • You can't even see your own hand.

  • I have to confess here that I have to turn my brain off,

  • so that I wouldn't imagine the worst that could happen in the cave.

  • I don't like caves, yeah... but I'm doing it for work.

  • These soda straws are speleothems, which basically means secondary mineral deposits.

  • We thought the formation was caused by physical and chemical interaction, but actually now

  • everywhere we look we see lots of bacteria living in this soda straw formation.

  • Each year, this grows only maybe 1 mm or smaller, so these formations could be

  • 500 years old or longer.

  • A thousand years, this length.

  • Or more.

  • DR. NAOWARAT CHEEPTHAM, OR "ANN," IS COMBING THE IRON CURTAIN CAVE - AND OTHER CAVES -

  • FOR A NEW ANTIBIOTIC THAT CAN FIGHT THE QUICKLY SWELLING CRISIS

  • OF DRUG-RESISTANT SUPERBUGS.

  • ANN: If we go into a hospital these days, some of us might not come back.

  • I mean, I'm sorry but it's that dire, the situation right now.

  • We don't have enough antibiotics in our toolbox to actually fight against these infections.

  • WHAT WOULD A WORLD WITHOUT EFFECTIVE ANTIBIOTICS REALLY LOOK LIKE?

  • MORE LIKE THE DARK AGES.

  • SURGERIES ARE FAR MORE DANGEROUS.

  • CHILDBIRTH MORTALITY RATES SOAR.

  • TRAVEL BETWEEN COUNTRIES IS TOO RISKY, DUE TO OUTBREAKS.

  • BY 2050, THERE WILL BE TEN MILLION DEATHS A YEAR FROM DRUG-RESISTANT INFECTIONS...

  • MORE THAN THE ANNUAL NUMBER OF DEATHS FROM CANCER.

  • AND IT'S HAPPENING BECAUSE OUR ONLY ANTIBIOTICS, MOST OF WHICH

  • ARE OVER THIRTY YEARS OLD, CAN NO LONGER OUTSMART INFECTIOUS BACTERIA.

  • ANN: Bacteria are way smarter than us.

  • They adapt so quickly, and they are very resourceful as well.

  • Every life on earth, we want to survive.

  • Bacteria are just like us in that sense. They want to survive.

  • There will be one or two of them that are strong enough, and stronger than the drug

  • that we put in, that they can still survive, and then they will multiply.

  • Basically this is the the law of nature, that you have these antibiotic-resistant

  • groups of bacteria.

  • WHICH MEANS, EVEN IF ANN FINDS THE NEXT ANTIBIOTIC, ONE DAY,

  • BACTERIA WILL BECOME RESISTANT TO IT AGAIN.

  • BUT A NEW DRUG WOULD STILL BUY US TIME.

  • AND WITH OVER ONE TRILLION MICROBIAL SPECIES YET TO BE DISCOVERED,

  • ANN HAS TO START SOMEWHERE.

  • THE IRON CURTAIN CAVE ECOSYSTEM IS SO RICH WITH LIFE BRAND NEW TO SCIENCE

  • THAT THERE'S HOPE AT LEAST ONE SPECIES COULD HOLD THE FORMULA FOR A NEW DRUG.

  • ANN: The bacteria themselves are not truly antibiotics in that sense,

  • but it is their metabolites that they produce.

  • We use these molecules as our antibiotics and

  • basically the source of antibiotics and new drugs.

  • SECONDARY METABOLITES ARE BIOLOGICALLY ACTIVE SMALL MOLECULES THAT HAVE OFTEN

  • BEEN THE SOURCE OF MEDICINE IN THE PAST.

  • THEY ARE A BY-PRODUCT OF BACTERIA, NOT REQUIRED FOR SURVIVAL,

  • BUT FOR A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE AGAINST OTHER SPECIES.

  • HOWEVER, ANN AND OTHER RESEARCHERS THINK SECONDARY METABOLITES

  • COULD SERVE AN ADDITIONAL PURPOSE.

  • ANN: I think there is more evidence now that these types of metabolites that they produce

  • during their life cycle are used as a tool for communication within themselves,

  • within their own species, and also between other species as well.

  • Instead of killing each other off and using a competitive mode of living, wouldn't it

  • be more beneficial for their own community to actually communicate and work together,

  • to achieve the same goal of surviving?

  • With that said, we want to look deeper into whether they produce certain kinds of

  • metabolites what we could use for our benefit.

  • UNDERSTANDING ANY DETAILS LIKE THESE ABOUT BACTERIA'S BEHAVIOR OR THEIR ENVIRONMENT

  • COULD HELP IN ANN'S QUEST FOR A NEW ANTIBIOTIC.

  • AND AS IF THAT TASK WASN'T MONUMENTAL ENOUGH,

  • CAVE ENVIRONMENTS ARE FACING A NEW THREAT,

  • THAT, IF IT CONTINUES, COULD THROW ANN'S MEDICINAL RESEARCH OFF-COURSE.

  • ANN: I never planned to study with bats, but I can see that it is important, and as a microbiologist,

  • I feel responsible.

  • ANN HAS ADDED THE PLIGHT OF BATS TO HER RESEARCH, BECAUSE OF AN EPIDEMIC

  • CALLED WHITE NOSE SYNDROME.

  • THIS FUNGAL INFECTION HAS ALREADY KILLED SIX MILLION BATS IN NORTH AMERICA.

  • WITHOUT BATS, CAVE ECOSYSTEMS WILL CHANGE.

  • AND THAT COULD BE A PROBLEM FOR FINDING THE NEXT ANTIBIOTIC.

  • AND EVEN THOUGH ANN IS A MICROBIOLOGIST, SHE SEES THE ROLE OF BATS IN THE BIGGER PICTURE.

  • ANN: Can you imagine, it's just like you look at this thousand piece puzzle, and bats

  • may be contributing to just one small piece of that puzzle.

  • But if this piece of puzzle actually gets lost, the whole puzzle will never be complete

  • in the same way.

  • We need to be careful with our heads, and also our hands... we have to make sure

  • we are not touching or breaking the mineral deposits that the cave has.

  • ANN IS LOOKING FOR SODA STRAW SPELEOTHEMS MADE OF CALCIUM CARBONATE OR CALCIUM SULFATE.

  • IT IS BELIEVED THAT THE IMPACT OF CALCIUM'S POSITIVELY CHARGED IONS BETWEEN BACTERIA DNA

  • STRANDS COULD BE THE KEY TO KILLING BACTERIA.

  • ANN: We would like to take soda straw, popcorn, and then some samples,

  • especially from the octopus room.

  • And we would like to set up an experiment there.

  • ANN'S RESEARCH IN THE IRON CURTAIN CAVE HAS HAD PROMISING RESULTS SO FAR,

  • THOUGH IT IS A SLUGGISH PROCESS.

  • BACTERIA CAN TAKE WEEKS TO GROW, AND ONLY THEN CAN ANN DETERMINE IF IT SHOWS PROMISE

  • AGAINST DRUG-RESISTANT SUPERBUGS.

  • ANN: Initially we found hundreds of bacteria.

  • We tried to isolate bacteria that live in the Iron Curtain Cave in the lab, and we found

  • fourteen of them, initially, that show activity against multidrug-resistant bacteria,

  • all those bad bacteria.

  • AT THAT POINT, THE SAMPLES LEAVE ANN'S LAB FOR GENOME SEQUENCING.

  • ANN: Now we actually singled out for the two of them, so we have the two hopefully superheros

  • right now.

  • OUT OF THE HUNDREDS OF SAMPLES SHE COLLECTED, ONLY TWO HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO BE WHAT ANN

  • CALLSSUPERHERO BACTERIA.”

  • BUT JUST BECAUSE THEY WORK IN A PETRI DISH DOESN'T MEAN THEY WILL WORK IN HUMANS.

  • IT WILL TAKE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS AND MANY YEARS TO MOVE FORWARD WITH ANY POTENTIAL DRUG,

  • AND THERE'S VERY LITTLE PROFIT TO BE HAD.

  • THAT'S WHY THERE'S BEEN SLOW, IF ANY, PROGRESS IN THE LAST FEW YEARS.

  • ANN: I do believe that we have solutions, but all of us have to work together, not just

  • scientists, not just politicians, not just the pharmaceutical companies, not just the

  • policymakers...

  • every one of us needs to understand the implications of overuse and misuse of antibiotics in our

  • society, and how we can reduce that.

  • ANN DOESN'T LET THE DAUNTING COMPLICATIONS WAIVER HER.

  • INSTEAD, HER SEARCH CONTINUES.

  • ANN: This cave gets its name because of this beautiful backdrop here; you can see that

  • it takes numbers of years, possibly millions of years, to form...

  • I can imagine how many species of bacteria and microorganisms that live in that structure,

  • that formation.

  • And maybe... maybe one of them could actually be our superhero

  • that could produce new antibiotics

  • for us one day.

  • [THIS EPISODE WAS PRESENTED BY THE U.S. AIR FORCE.

  • LEARN MORE AT AIR FORCE.COM.]

  • For more episodes of Science in the Extremes,

  • check out this one right here.

  • Don't forget to subscribe, and come back to Seeker

  • for more episodes.

  • Thanks for watching!

UNDERNEATH THIS CANADIAN FOREST IS AN EXPANSIVE NETWORK OF CAVES,

字幕與單字

單字即點即查 點擊單字可以查詢單字解釋

B2 中高級

超級細菌的治療方法隱藏在地底深處嗎? (Is the Cure for Superbugs Hiding Deep Under the Earth?)

  • 6 0
    林宜悉 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
影片單字