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Our
Mortal
Drugs
  • Looking for the Birth of New Antibiotics
  • David Mogolov
Though these drugs derive from genetically primitive processes, it is beyond our current ability to invent them: we can only synthesize and modify them once we’ve discovered them. Discovery at such a miscroscopic scale, it turns out, is hard to come by.
We should be rooting for teixobactin, because we need new drugs. The danger of a world with unchecked antibiotic-resistant infection is the stuff of dystopian fiction (or, if you only have 15 minutes, an early episode of the podcast
"Meanwhile in the Future").

Our relationship with antibiotics and bacteria will never be a settled one. Bacteria will continue to adapt and thrive. If we want to do the same, we can’t forget the mortality of our drugs.
The germs certainly won’t.
David Mogolov tells stories on stage. His new monologue, Clenched, will be in New York City and Boston this winter. He also runs Out of Stock, a site where new works are created from odd stock photography.