Dr Anand Anandkumar stands in the middle of his lab, smiling at the camera. He is surrounded by six colleagues – everyone is wearing a white labcoat, and several are wearing bright green latex gloves as they work pipetting into test trays.
Credit:

Abhishek N.Chinnappa

Licence: All Rights Reserved

Dr Anandkumar, CEO and Managing Director (centre), stands with his lab group in Bugworks Research Inc.

PodcastWhen Science Finds a Way

Episode 1: What can we do to stop superbugs?

Listen to this episode.

After years of antibiotics being abused and overused, we now face a silent pandemic where the treatments we rely on no longer work. Dr Anand Anandkumar joins Alisha to correct the misconceptions around antimicrobial resistance and explain what we can do about it.

Credit:

Abhishek N.Chinnappa

Licence: All Rights Reserved

Dr Anandkumar, CEO and Managing Director (centre), stands with his lab group in Bugworks Research Inc.

Alisha Wainwright

Dr. Anand Anandkumar

38-minute listen

Alisha Wainwright

Dr. Anand Anandkumar

38-minute listen

Listen to this episode 

Show notes

Since the discovery of penicillin in the early 20th century, we’ve seen the risk of minor infections virtually disappear. But after years of antibiotics being abused and overused, we now face a silent pandemic where the treatments we rely on no longer work.

The potential scale of antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, is staggering, and there is a lack of awareness of just how dangerous it could be. 

Alisha speaks to Dr Anand Anandkumar, an engineer turned biotechnologist, to correct the misconceptions around AMR, and discover what we can do about it. We’ll also hear from John Kariuki in Kenya, whose own experience with AMR almost cost him his life, and Benard Wanyama, whose project is treating patients with infections and monitoring the spread of AMR. 

Together, they make a powerful case for urgent and collective action to stem the tide of superbugs.

Meet the guest

  • Dr. Anand Anandkumar

    Co-founder of Bugworks

    Dr. Anand Anandkumar is an engineer turned biomedical researcher. He co-founded Bugworks in 2014, a company that aims to discover novel treatment options for resistant bacterial infections. As our current generation of antibiotics become less and less effective at treating infections worldwide, Bugworks is one of a handful of groups worldwide working on what they hope will become a next-generation broad-spectrum antibiotic – an antibiotic that acts on the two big bacterial groups. This work is part-funded by Wellcome.

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Transcripts are available for all episodes.

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