improved antibiotics

An uninvited guest leads to a new antibiotic

Alexander Fleming famously discovered penicillin back in 1928, when an experiment he was running was accidentally was contaminated by mold. When bacteria contaminated one of her cancer cell cultures in 2011, researcher Marit Otterlei decided to follow in Fleming’s footsteps.

Før professor Egil Lien går inn i laboratoriet, må han ta på seg tett maske, skotrekk, hårnett og heldekkende frakk som avviser bakterier.

The Black Death bacteria continues to kill

It took almost six months for Egil Lien to get permission from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the US to study the plague bacteria that, in its time, killed half of Norway’s population. Now, an antibiotic-resistant strain of the bacteria has been found.