Michael Mosley vs The Superbugs

For more than 70 years,

we've waged war against bacterial infections

using antibiotics.

But it's a war we're now losing.

Drug-resistant superbugs...

..are spreading.

To find out what we're up against,

I'm donating my body to an extraordinary experiment.

We are going to unleash bacterial hell on a clone of my body.

Woohoo!

We're hoping this experiment - which is novel and rather spooky -

will give us a whole new insight into the way that bacteria

fight back against antibiotics.

- That is absolutely revolting. - It's fabulous!

I'll search high and low for radical solutions...

Die, bacteria, die!

..to stop the spread of the superbugs.

When I remove the bandage, we should see quite a difference.

Oh, yeah!

Is it too late to prevent antibiotic Armageddon?

Me and my body are about to find out.

Hello.

- Good to see you upright. - Well, it's nice to be upright.

- Come and have a seat. - Thank you.

Hi there.

A month ago, 57-year-old John Shelton was fighting

for his life against a sudden bacterial infection.

- Good. - When I arrived here, they opened me up, there was a big mass.

It was very, very infected,

and the bacteria were already working their merry havoc,

trashing my body, shutting down my lungs,

shutting down my kidneys, shutting down everything, pretty much.

- You don't remember anything? - Not a thing.

His lung had almost completely filled up with bacteria,

or infection, and he wasn't able to oxygenate his blood.

Bacteria called staph aureus caused the infection.

They were eventually stopped by a concoction of antibiotics,

but for a while it was touch and go.

- HE INHALES AND EXHALES - Brilliant.

- When they thought he'd had a brain haemorrhage -

sorry -

that was not a great moment.

You know, just one day at a time, really, and you do place your faith

in the fact there's going to be another antibiotic to come up.

It's interesting that, you know,

there is a lot of technology here, there is obviously a fantastic staff

but, in the end, it's kind of antibiotics versus bacteria.

That's it. Simple as that.

There is no doubt in my mind that, without antibiotics,

I would not be here.

Before the 1940s, up to a third of deaths were caused

by bacterial infection.

A simple cut could kill you.

Then came antibiotics - drugs able to kill bacteria.

The first was penicillin,

discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928.

More followed.

But then, the pipeline dried up.

No totally new antibiotics

have been found for more than 30 years.

And more and more bacteria are becoming resistant

to our dwindling stock...

..including superbugs,

which threaten to send modern medicine back to the Dark Ages.

Around 700,000 people die every year because of drug-resistant

strains of infections like E. coli

and TB, but that figure could soar to around 10 million a year

by the middle of this century if urgent action isn't taken.

Increasing numbers of people are finding that antibiotics are no longer working.

People like Slawa.

Slawa's foot is so infected with E. coli.

It could lead to her whole leg being amputated.

Be warned, this glimpse into a post-antibiotic world

is gruesome.

So, if you are squeamish, look away now.

'If we do nothing,

'modern medicine in all its finery will become much more hazardous.'

Cancer therapy, immunotherapy...

I mean, just simple infections like meningitis.

All of these things become more hazardous.

So anti-microbial resistance is the biggest single issue

which is affecting modern medicine at the moment.

In 2015, 34 million prescriptions

were issued for antibiotics in the UK alone.

Have we created superbugs by popping too many of these pills?

I want to find out exactly what antibiotics do and why

bacteria are resisting them.

Time for an unusual experiment.

So I have done a lot of strange things in my time,

and a lot of self experiments, but nothing quite like this.

Now, I'm in pretty good health and I only take antibiotics

when I absolutely have to, but I am going to explore what

a powerful antibiotic does to my body

by making my bacteria visible.

If you'd like to know, I have not washed for two days.

- Great. - All right! Yeah, that's...

When I start doing these things, I always think,

"Oh, it sounds like a good idea,"

and when I actually get there, I start to wonder if it really is.

Artist Mellissa Fisher specialises in creating

living biological sculptures.

- Oooh! - Right in between your toes.

With Professor Mark Clements of Lincoln University,

she is leading a team to make

a living bacterial sculpture out of me.

So, that's the...the right here.

Step one - collect material from all over my body

using cotton-wool swabs.

On the skin, you've got over 1,000 different types of bacteria.

And each person is unique.

All different parts of the body will have slightly different

micro flora, depending on whether it's a moist area,

whether it's a dry area, oily area...

By moist, I'm thinking armpits, probably.

Yeah, the very moist areas...

The armpit and the groin are particularly good.

- OK. I might do my own groin. - Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Next, I'm wrapped in plaster to create a mould of me...

Woo!

..and given a full body wax in the process.

Do you want your hair back?

Our home for this experiment is Imperial College in London.

It's right on that edge, there.

Here, our team of scientists and sculptors turn my body mould

into possibly the world's largest Petri dish by filling it

with a nutrient-rich jelly called agar.

Good morning, gang. Good morning.

After 12 hours, the agar jelly has set.

It is like Tutankhamen's tomb, isn't it?

All right, so nice and gently, up and out.

There's two parts to this experiment,

which is why my rather spooky clone is split in half.

- The foot's out. - Woohoo!

That is wonderfully weird.

On one side, we want to grow bacteria from all over my skin

to see what's living on me.

It kind of looks like me, I must admit that.

A slightly bald version of me, but...

THEY CHUCKLE Wow.

On the other side, we've added a broad-spectrum antibiotic used

in hospitals against a wide range of infections.

But before we even get the chance to add my bacteria,

something else has snuck in.

What's the green stuff?

- Does this suggest the presence of bacteria already, then? - It does.

On this side, where we don't have any antibiotics,

- then there has been some growth of bacteria. - Right.

So even given the tiniest opportunity,

the bacteria have got stuck in.

They do, they do. Yes, yep, yep. They're everywhere.

We don't know where these green bacteria have come from.

But you can see that the antibiotic embedded on the left-hand side

have so far stopped the invader from growing.

Time to add bacteria collected from my body.

These are all the swabs we've taken of your body.

We're going to start with the bottom of the feet, so number 20.

We want to make visible the invisible microbes -

mainly bacteria - that live on a healthy human.

So we're adding each of my samples to the corresponding

part of my clone.

Let's see what they make of their new home.

OK, we can do this.

Our giant Petri dish is sealed into an airtight case.

It really does feel like they're taking my body and embalming it.

Whoa!

- Oop, the foot's gone. - Oh, no!

Despite a couple of rather nasty foot injuries...

..Microbial Michael is now ready for our experiment to start.

Which microbes will thrive and where?

I would expect, within the next few days,

we'll start seeing them emerge on that side.

The question is, will they be able to overcome the antibiotics

and start growing on this side?

The truth is, we have absolutely

no idea what is going to happen next, because this sort of thing

has never been done on this sort of scale before.

We simply have to wait to find out.

Time for a road trip.

I want to dig deeper into the roots of the crisis.

So why are more and more bacteria becoming resistant?

Is it simply that we're overdoing the antibiotics,

or is it more complicated than that?

I recently read about a fascinating discovery made here,

in New Mexico, which changed the way I think about antibiotic resistance.

Now, this is the spot. Gorgeous, isn't it?

Unfortunately, what I am looking for is not here, on the surface.

It is deep underground.

And I say unfortunately because I am pretty claustrophobic.

My guide is Dr Hazel Barton.

- Hey-ho. Hello. - Hi, Michael, how are you doing? - Glad to see you.

Hazel's a microbiologist who searches for new species

of bacteria living deep under Carlsbad National Park,

in a vast network of caves.

- Thank you. What's the longest you've been down here for? - Eight days.

- Eight days? Cool. Journey to the centre of the earth. - Yeah.

So we're getting off the tourist trail here.

Blimey. It gets narrower, doesn't it?

- It's quite big in here. - Yeah. It's cool.

It was in 2012 in a cave much deeper than I'm able to go that

Hazel's team made their breakthrough discovery.