<
Antibiotics from Space
Test tubes of bacteria produce more antibiotics in space than they do on Earth. Researchers aren't sure why ... but they aim to find out.
Listen to this story via streaming audio, or a downloadable file (help).
March 29, 2002
Bacteria get no respect.
People wash their hands with anti-bacterial soap. The most popular nickname for bacteria is "bugs." And, by the way, don't touch that doorknob!
Yet, bacteria are not always a bad thing. They don't just cause sickness, they help cure it: the antibiotics prescribed for your toddler's earache, for example, were most likely harvested from the microbes themselves.
A microbiologist using a microscope studies bacteria cultured in petri dishes.
Image Credit: Science@NASA
Because people need antibiotics, some scientists are working hard -- not to kill but to nurture bacteria. A good place to do that, it seems, is in space. Researchers first noticed in 1968 that microbes cultured onboard NASA's Biosatellite II grew better than they did on Earth. That raised an obvious question: If microbes grow better in space, would they produce more antibiotics there, too?
The answer is yes -- under certain conditions. Experiments sponsored by Bristol-Myers Squibb in the mid-1990's revealed that microbes grown in test tubes or gas-permeable bags aboard the space shuttle produced more antibiotics than did microbes on the ground. In one case the improvement was as much as 200%. Antibiotic production is an important part of the pharmaceutical industry on Earth, so this result caught the attention of scientists and business people alike.
(Full Story Here)
Cheers,
Dan
Antibiotics from Space . . .