40 Years Without A New Antibiotic. Why?

Опубликовано 5 февраля 2026, 18:03

To learn more, check out www.scienceawarenessproject.org

Most medical science moves at super-speed; researchers are constantly developing new medications, techniques, surgeries, you name it. Except for antibiotics: we haven’t gotten a single new type of antibiotic ready to give to patients in over 40 years.

LEARN MORE
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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
- Antibiotics: a medicine (such as penicillin or its derivatives) that inhibits the growth of or destroys microorganisms.
- Petri dish: a shallow, circular, transparent dish with a flat lid, used for the culture of microorganisms.

If you liked this week’s video, you might also like:
- The Antibiotic Apocalypse Explained - Kurzgesagt: youtube.com/watch?v=xZbcwi7SfZ...
- Antibiotic Resistance is SO COMPLICATED - SciShow : youtube.com/watch?v=pkTalaQsRl...
- Lizah’s favourite blog: smallthingsconsidered.blog

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CREDITS
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Cameron Duke | Script Writer, Narrator and Director
Lizah van der Aart | Storyboard Artist
Sarah Berman | Illustration, Video Editing and Animation
Nathaniel Schroeder | Music

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Lizah van der Aart • Sarah Berman • Cameron Duke
Arcadi Garcia i Rius • David Goldenberg • Melissa Hayes
Henry Reich • Ever Salazar • Leonardo Souza • Kate Yoshida

OTHER CREDITS
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We are grateful for the support of:
Dr Bernhard Kepplinger, Zakład Mikrobiologii Molekularnej, Wydział Biotechnologii
Dr Katherine Duncan, Biosciences Institute, University of Newcastle

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REFERENCES
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Lewis, K. (2020). The Science of Antibiotic Discovery. Cell, 181(1), 29–45. doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.02...
Jangra, M., Travin, D. Y., Aleksandrova, E. V, Kaur, M., Darwish, L., Koteva, K., … Wright, G. D. (2025). A broad-spectrum lasso peptide antibiotic targeting the bacterial ribosome. Nature, 640(8060), 1022–1030. doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-087...
Blin, K., Shaw, S., Kloosterman, A. M., Charlop-Powers, Z., van Wezel, G. P., Medema, M. H., & Weber, T. (2021). antiSMASH 6.0: improving cluster detection and comparison capabilities. Nucleic Acids Research, 49(W1), W29–W35. doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkab335