Staph Retreat

0:00WNYC Studios is supported by Upway. Spring is the perfect time for an e-bike, and Upway makes it easy to find your ride. Save up to 60 % on new and certified refurbished e-bikes, all backed by a one-year warranty. Shop online at upway.co or visit us in Brooklyn or Los Angeles. Our showrooms are open Monday through Saturday. For store hours and to find your perfect bike, head to upway.co. That's upway.co. Hey, it's Lulu. This week, I want to bring back an episode about scientists who look in the most unexpected place to find a brand new drug to treat a very tricky bug. The bug is MRSA, that really nasty infection people sometimes get in hospitals.

0:43And I don't want to give away the drug because that's sort of all the fun. So I'm going to just pass you off to Jad, Robert, and little baby Latif from about a decade ago. Here we go. Wait, you're listening. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radiolab. Radiolab. From WNYC.

1:11Robert Krulwich:Rewind. So the way the story goes, it starts in 1928. 1928. Alexander Fleming, the story goes, who knows if it's apocryphal or not, Is growing staph, staphylococcus, in his lab. That's Maren McKenna. She's a science writer. And staph is a bacterium. It lives on our skin, and it especially likes parts of the body that are warm and damp. So it likes to be just up our noses or... On our genitals or in our armpits, places like that. And generally, it's no big deal. Doesn't really do us any harm. But if it gets into a scratch or a cut and makes its way inside our bodies... Staff goes from being this benign companion to being potentially deadly.

2:02Anyway, London, 1928.

2:05Robert Krulwich:Fleming is growing staff in his lab. In these little Petri dishes. And he was a slob, basically. And he goes on a vacation, leaves his Petri dishes covered in bacteria just around, leaves his window open. And something blows across his lab plates. Some tiny little speck of a thing just floats in through the window and comes to a rest on one of those petri dishes. And so a few weeks later. Fleming, finally, back from vacation. He needs to use those lab plates again, and he and his assistant go to clean them off. I mean, you'd imagine that he would see some real lush, nice, furry lawn of staff just overflowing right out of the plate.

2:52Robert Krulwich:Because it's been sitting there for so long. It's been a staff party. But on one of the plates that they pick up, they realize that it's almost polka dot. It's got little dead zones all over it. Little patches where the staff is dead. Dead patches. So something blew through the window, landed in the dish, and starts killing the bacteria. Yeah, and so when Fleming looks down at his plate, he sees that at the center of these, you know, staff dead zones, there's a tiny speck of natural mold. A mold. And they realize that that mold is expressing a compound that is killing the staff around it. It's like emanating rays of death.

3:35Robert Krulwich:What was the compound? That compound was called... Penicillin. The first true antibiotic. Infectious diseases that had been killing people for as long as we had been people suddenly could be stopped. And it just blew in through the window? That is the story that's always been told. However it got there, it was amazing. It was a miracle. It was called a miracle drug, right? I mean, it was just, it really was a moment when the world changed. When Fleming was put on the cover of Time magazine. This is 1944, height of World War II. It was a picture of his face and the banner on the cover said, his penicillin will save more lives than war can spend.

4:24Robert Krulwich:But, and this is, I had no idea about this. virtually at the exact same time when Fleming's face is on the cover of Time magazine, like two months later, this Stanford researcher publishes that he has found five different strains of staph that do not respond to penicillin. Really? Yeah. This is happening while he's on the cover? Virtually the exact same moment. And it's the first sign that staph has responded to the penicillin in the world by developing resistance. It's almost like a... Set producer, Soren Wheeler. The era of penicillin was over before it began. Almost before it began. Before it's even released to the general public.

5:07Robert Krulwich:Wow. And that penicillin-resistant staph moves across the globe. And in 1957, in Cleveland, some scientists gather together. And they are in a panic. They have no idea why they've lost the antibiotic miracle so quickly. So scientists across the globe put their brains together and try to come up with a new drug. The next amazing thing. And in 1960, they get it. Methicillin. And it works. For about 11 months. 11 months? Wow. And so we started this arms race. There was a bug, and then there was a drug that took care of it, and then there was a better bug. Drug bug, drug bug. Right, exactly. I actually found this list.

5:50Robert Krulwich:Do you want to hear it? Yeah. Okay, so streptomycin, 1943, resistance 1948. Methicillin, 1960, resistance 1961. Clindamycin, 1969, resistance 1970. You can think of it as leapfrog or you can think of it as a game of whack-a-mole. Ampicillin, 1961, then 1973. So that's a little. Carbenicillin, released 1964, resistance 1974. They're getting better. They're getting better. There were always more drugs. You know, the drug development was doing really well for a really long time. Hyperacillin introduced 1980, resistance 1981. But after the year 2000, drug companies begin to realize it's not really in their best interest to make antibiotics anymore.

6:34Robert Krulwich:And the end I have on this list is Linuzolid, which is introduced 2000, resistance 2002. There are a few more, but you get the idea. Antibiotic approvals, the entry of new drugs to the market, just kind of fell off a cliff. Why? Well, it takes 10 years and a billion dollars to get to the point where the drug is marketable. But as soon as you get the drug on the market... The resistance clock is running. So you probably won't make your money back. And as you've probably heard, we now have these situations... A frightening new warning from the Centers for Disease Control about the spread of a string of germs...

7:08Where literally nothing works. So-called superbugs are now turning up in hospitals... And the patient dies.

7:15Robert Krulwich:There are now bugs that can resist all of our drugs. I have seen physicians break down weeping over this. It's not the way that medicine is supposed to fail anymore, but it does. I mean, I know that possibly the origin story of penicillin is apocryphal. So this is all a little suspect. But, you know, just to enjoy imaginings for a moment, like it just seems like if that happened, let's just open up a bunch more windows. Something ought to blow in. But we could wait a long time, right? I mean, staff had been around for millennia before 1928. But, you know, the whole reason that I wanted to do this story is because kind of there is a new window.

8:01Robert Krulwich:It's a different kind of window, though. Not a window next to some petri dishes? Not a window next to some petri dishes. Kind of a window next to some petri dishes, but a totally different kind of window. What kind of window is it? Well, I'm about to tell you that. Is something blowing to the window? Yeah, but it's not mold. It's way more fun than mold. It carries an axe. How about that? So it's a person. Maybe. I don't even know what I'm referring to anymore. From vaudeville to the chitlin circuit to stand-up stages and 1990s sitcoms, black comedians have used humor to tell the truth in ways few other art forms can.

8:38Robert Krulwich:Damn! I'm Jeff Bennett, co-anchor of the PBS NewsHour and author of the new book, Black Out Loud. Join me on March 26th at 7 p.m. at the Greenspace at WNYC. Alongside very special guests, Phoebe Robinson and Jordan Carlos. We'll explore how black comedy has shaped American life as we know it. Info and tickets at WNYC.org slash events. Uh, part two? Yeah. Okay, hey, I'm Jed Abumrad. I'm Robert Krolwich. This is Radiolab. We're ready now for part two. Now, remember when part one ended, there was a window open and something was going to come through. We don't know what. We know it's not mold. Yeah, we know it's not mold.

9:15So whatever it is, whatever it was, whatever it will be, we will hear about it now from our reporter, Lottif Nasser.

9:21Robert Krulwich:Well, actually, there is this story about these two women who did open a window to an alien and distant land. And actually, in a way, it's a story about reimagining the past. But to me, it's a story about a friendship. Hey, everybody. Hello again. Hello again. It's a buddy film. It's a buddy. Yeah, it's a buddy movie. OK, so yeah, maybe just walk us through it. Right. OK, so you have... Hello, I'm Dr. Christina Lee. Christina. And I'm an associate professor in Viking studies at the School of English at the University of Nottingham. She's a historian. And then you also have... Hi, I'm Freya Harrison.

10:02Freya. I'm a research fellow in the Center for Biomolecular Sciences at the University of Nottingham.

10:08Robert Krulwich:And Freya, Freya's a microbiologist. She studies bacteria. We'll start with her. Okay, so most of my work is about sort of looking at how bacteria evolve during very, very long-lived infections. But my big hobby is Anglo-Saxon Viking reenactment. So I had a purely amateur interest in the history and mainly in dressing up as a warrior and going to fight club every Wednesday night and learning to use the weapons. Really? Yeah. So this is actually not Freya's group. This is a group in New Jersey, but basically they do the same thing. Hundreds of people go out into, you know, some field with some dulled weapons.

10:50Everything from swords, spears, axes, and we give each other a jolly good bashing and have a good time. I only mention this because it actually plays into the story. Well, it was a really nice sort of coincidence, really.

11:07Robert Krulwich:2012. A few years after finishing her doctorate, Freya goes off to work at the University of Nottingham. Nottingham's one of the places in the UK not only for microbiology, but for sort of Anglo-Saxon and Viking history. And she goes there to study microbes, but she figures, hey, why not, while I'm here, brush up on my old English?

11:29I'd studied some old English to a level where I could sort of read and speak a little bit.

11:37Robert Krulwich:But she figured, hey, she could be better. And if she did, she would get deeper into the whole reenactment thing. So I rather cheekily emailed the School of English's Old English Reading Group. That's where she met Christina. Yes. The historian. At one point, Christina, the historian, asks Freya, like, what do you do? And Freya said, you know, my day job is that I'm a microbiologist, but on evenings and weekends, I'm a history nerd. And Christina said the moment she heard that. I just kind of thought, I found my kindred spirit here. Because she was like, wow, I'm like your mirror image because I'm a historian by day, but by night I'm a microbiology nerd.

12:16I've been interested in infectious disease for quite a long time, which I don't find any kind of friends in my department.

12:24Robert Krulwich:She told me she's the kind of person who would, you know, watch Ebola coverage on the news and not be able to stop watching. So eventually they start talking about historical diseases. So like, how would people back then have treated something like, you know, Ebola? Freya is especially interested in this because she, for her historical reenactment, is developing this nun character who goes off and heals people. But anyway, so they're talking back and forth. And then to cut a long story short, they find themselves both interested in this one particular book. It's known as Bald's Leech Book. So this is about 1100 years old.

13:03What's it called? Bald's what? Bald's Leech Book. It's nothing to do with no hair Oh Even though it is spelled Is it B-A-L-D It is indeed And leech like a leech like a little worm that grabs onto your blood No it comes from the old English word lecher Which is actually a healer or a doctor So the little squiggly animals are called leeches Because they're medicinal Not the other way around

13:28Robert Krulwich:So the doctor wasn't named for the leech The leech was named for the doctor Exactly yeah And bald is a man the guy who wrote the book We think it's a guy. We think it's a guy's name. And what is this book? So it's kind of like this old healer's handbook. It's filled with these potions and cures. The original manuscript is in the British Library. Locked away. But 21st century, very kind people have digitized the original old English text and put it online. So Christina and Freya bring it up and they start going through all the remedies. And, you know, it describes to you remedies for stuff that is a little bit different.

14:03Robert Krulwich:You know, things like possession by the devil, which, according to this leech book, the remedy for someone who is possessed by the devil is you make this kind of like foul brew. You make them drink it and it'll make them vomit out the devil. And then there's another remedy for warts.

14:26Robert Krulwich:And all I'm going to say about that one is that it involves hound's urine and mouse blood. And then things like... How shall we say, make your husband more physically attentive? Or less physically attentive, whichever direction you need to moderate it. Pigs blood, I hope. Or toad blood. Actually, it's just you boil a plant in some water and give it to the guy. Oh. Yeah. Anyway. So Frey and Christina are going through this leech book, looking for some kind of wound. Something that was clearly an infection. Some pussy something. Something we could clearly say that's bacterial. And eventually they find an entry.

15:09Where at the end of the recipe it says in Old English.

15:12Robert Krulwich:C 'est best de l 'achidant. C 'est best de l 'achidant. The best medicine. The best medicine. Yeah, move over laughter. Yeah, and we thought, how can we not try this one? What was the best medicine for? So it said it was for a lump in the eye. It's actually called wen in Old English. Yeah, these days if you get a, of course that could be something like a wart, right? But there is a suggestion by archaeologists that eye infection was rife amongst the Anglo-Saxons because you lived in buildings where you had smoke going on, you lived cramped together. So it could also be a stye. What is a stye? It's an infection of an eyelash follicle.

15:54You rub it and it itches and then it gets swollen. Yeah, and it causes quite a nasty red lump.

15:59Robert Krulwich:It's a stye in your eye. Sti in your eye. Now, it just so happens that the bacteria that causes the sti in your eye is... Staphylococcus aureus. Staph. Oh, the same stuff as the Mr. Window Man, penicillin man. Exactly. And we just thought, wouldn't it be nice to have a bit of spare time and earn a couple of hundred quid to buy the ingredients and just give this a go? Yes, let's give it a try. You know, why the hell not? And matter of fact... Look at this place! We thought that too. Studio. Not bad at all. Recently, producer Matt Kielty and I went to my tiny apartment in the city, and we tried to cook it up too.

16:36Robert Krulwich:Are you ready to cook? Oh, I'm ready to cook. I've got this recipe here if you'd like it. Oh, awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Please read it. Go for it. Okay. It goes like this.

16:48Robert Krulwich:That's the first line of the recipe, and right off the bat, for Christina and Freya, there's a problem. That first ingredient. The word kropliach. Kropliach. Kropliach. Christina said it was quite difficult to translate. Nobody quite knows what it is. But luckily... Just a couple words over was a clue. And garlic. The second ingredient. Garlic, which is an allium species. And cropliatch. We know this was another allium. That's what the Dictionary of Old English tells us. So they figured probably what they were dealing with was an onion or a leek. But we didn't know which one. So we thought, okay, we'll try one that has onion and one that has leek.

17:24Robert Krulwich:Now, the recipe doesn't call for this, but we did it anyway. Peel the onion. Chop it up. The same for the garlic. And the recipe doesn't tell you how much. It does tell you equal amounts of. So you take out the measuring cups. You measure out equal amounts. Yeah, equal amounts. Into the pestle. And then after that. Okay, it says. A canoe are well to somne. Pounded well together. Okay. But you have to be really pounded. And pounded Freya did. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so lots of time with a mortar and pestle. Muscles built up from wielding a sword for pounding the ingredients. Look, it's starting to be more of a mush.

18:05Robert Krulwich:Third ingredient? The next one was definitely something you wouldn't have knocking around in your kitchen. And fairies. Ye alan bea emfela. Ox gall. Ox gall. Bovine bile from a cow's gallbladder. What, do you have to kill the cow and then go reach it? No, it's actually a very standard ingredient in microbiology labs. Ox bile. Today in 2015, you can but should not just buy it on the internet. Here we go. Here we go. And so you take the ox bile, add it to the onion and garlic. And then the fourth ingredient. You name a ween. Wine. It's wine time. Red wine, white wine. What kind of wine are we talking about here?

18:36This is the thing. So we had quite a discussion about what type of wine should we use. And we don't know, really, did they have red wine? Did they have white wine? What was the alcohol content? But I did a bit of detective work.

18:47Robert Krulwich:And she figured out that the monastery where this leech book was written, well, she figured out where their vineyard was. And just down the road, there's this modern organic vineyard. So they used that wine. Cavicchioli. Cavicchioli and figli. And figli. I just want to point out how difficult it is to find English wine. We had to use Italian. But... E mengwith su l 'accedo, sonne an arfat. Once you get all that stuff together, you're under the final ingredient. The fifth ingredient was actually that you're specifically told that you have to mix these ingredients together in a brass or a bronze pot.

19:19I don't have one. so we had to sort of add pieces of copper that would have been available to people at the time.