In an Australian-first project, the University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) is urging Queenslanders to dig deep in the hope of unearthing new antibiotics.
Soils for Science is a citizen project that aims to find new antibiotics in backyards, gardens and farms across the State.
Project Manager of Soils for Science, Zeinab Khalil said society urgently needed new antibiotics to treat an alarming surge in drug-resistant bacterial and fungal infections.
“Without safe and effective antibiotics, modern medicine is at risk of being set back over 100 years to a time when even a simple scratch could kill you if it became infected,” Dr Khalil said.
“Antibiotics make possible many medical procedures we take for granted — caesarean sections, hip replacements, and the treatment of seemingly simple ear, eye, nose and throat infections.”
He said that over the years nature had supplied many valuable medicines, including most of the antibiotics in use today.
However, with bacteria becoming increasingly resistant to even last-resort antibiotics, new leads were urgently needed.
“The extraordinary diversity of the Queensland natural landscape, from tropics to deserts, encompasses an enormous untapped potential for new antibiotics and other medicines,” Dr Khalil said.
Soils for Science seeks to enlist Queenslanders to collect 100,000 soil samples from across the State.
Queenslanders can order free soil sampling kits with pre-paid return postage from the Soils for Science website.
“IMB scientists will process these soil samples to harvest and study the incredible diversity of microbes, including bacteria and fungi hidden within, and search for the next antibiotic,” Dr Khalil said.
Interested readers can find out more by visiting the Soil for Science website at this PS News link.
