Dr. Kiki's Science Hour 36

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Dr. Kiki's Science Hour
Episode 36


"Battling the Red Queen"Hosts: Leo Laporte and Kirsten Sanford Guest: Andrew Read Recorded: March 4, 2010 Published: March 8, 2010 Duration: 1:06:55 Transcript Previous episode – Next episode

Guests

Andrew Read, Penn State University, Professor of Biology and Entomology, and Eberly College of Science Distinguished Senior Scholar

TheReadGroup.net

Topic

Battling the Red Queen Dr. Kiki talks with Andrew Read about the arms race between human drugs and the evolution of infectious diseases. Is it possible to get out of the evolutionary race where infectious diseases and drug development are concerned?

Arteminisins are the most effective drugs we currently have to combat malaria. This past year, scientists learned that the malaria parasite had developed resistance to the drugs in some areas of the world. Now the question facing the health industry is how they minimize the spread of the resistant strains to allow the drugs to last longer... how can they buy scientists time to create a new drug? This is just one example of the situation we face, which will simply go on and on and on, unless we can derail the process somehow.

Can we stop the mad dash to create the next drug that will only work as long as diseases are not resistant? Can we use evolutionary principles to get around evolution?