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Next-generation antibiotics to be found on the ocean floor
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Today, doctors all over the world say that due to the widespread and thoughtless use of antibiotics, the so-called apocalypse will soon come to the planet. The alarm is caused by the fact that even now the human body refuses to perceive some antibiotics as drugs. Doctors claim that the human body is able to get used to the action of antibiotics, and literally in a few decades many drugs will not cope with infections. Bacteria do not react to drugs, which, however, have an adverse effect on the functioning of human internal organs.
Researchers from the UK have announced that they are ready to begin searching for new substances of natural origin in the near future. According to data available to scientists from the UK, new antibiotics can be extracted from the depths of the world's oceans. At great depths, researchers expect to find chemical substances unknown today that will prevent the "apocalypse" that will inevitably occur if new drugs are not invented.
The leaders of a research team from the UK reported that in the deepest trenches of the ocean, living organisms have the ability to survive in the most extreme conditions. At the same time, many organisms living at depth develop independently of each other and can exist without contact. Scientists believe that in the depths of the ocean they have a chance to discover chemicals that will help create a completely new generation of semi-synthetic antibiotics.
The researchers plan to take the first samples from the bottom of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. After the bacteria and fungi found are properly studied, the scientists will try to grow similar examples of living organisms, which will subsequently help in the development of new drugs.
If new drugs are not invented as an alternative to modern antibiotics, scientists warn that in 15-20 years, the viral infections known today will stop responding to modern antibiotics. At the moment, all bacteria and viruses known to science are increasingly showing resistance to the drugs used. Some scientists compare the "antibiotic crisis" in significance with global warming, and British scientists warn that the resistance of viruses to all antibiotics may lead to humanity taking, roughly speaking, several steps back in its medical development and returning to the position when antibiotics were only a theoretical topic.
The South American trench will be explored first; this autumn, a research group from Britain plans to descend to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean to study bacteria and fungi located at a depth of 160 meters. Scientists plan to complete the expedition in 18-20 months and, if the research is successful, new antibiotics will be available to the world in 10-12 years.
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