Doctor Who: A Dalek Who Helps Doctors

Could a Dalek save the human race?

“We’ve got at least three different types of bacteria from the Dalek that were able to ‘exterminate’ our Micrococcus indicator strain.” — Dr. Adam Roberts

Typically, when science fiction crosses over into science fact, people are developing new technologies based on various ones dreamed up by the writers of books, television shows, and movies. In this article, we are going to take a look at something a bit different. Dr. Adam Rutherford, presenter of BBC Radio 4’s

Inside Science

, took swabs of bacteria from around the BBC. The most notable item is a prop Dalek that resides in the foyer of the BBC Broadcasting House in London. Rutherford did this in participation with a project called

Swab and Send

, lead by Dr. Adam Roberts at University College London. The goal is to get the public to send in samples from their daily environments, and then have the project’s team use these samples in order to create new antibiotics.

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This is vitally important, considering that an increasing number of such medications are becoming ineffective due to the evolution of bacteria into antibiotic resistant strains. According to the CDC, a minimum of two million people per year become infected with antibiotic resistant bacteria, which results in at least twenty three thousand deaths. As demonstrated in modeling by Rand Europe and auditors KPMG, there is the potential for that number to rise to ten million a year by 2050 if we don’t figure something out fast.

Rutherford reports that the sample from the Dalek provided four (or “at least three” according to Roberts) separate colonies of novel antibiotics which possess the potential to be turned into medicines.

(Article continues below the next post link.)

Next: Smith and Tennant Want to Return to Doctor Who

You can listen to the Inside Science episode ‘Fighting Antimicrobial Resistance’ on the BBC’s website, and watch a wacky video on the matter at NewsFix.

While one Dalek prop recently set a record for how much it sold at auction, another actually contributed something potentially of great value to the world… which is quite an unusual thing for a Dalek, indeed.

Source: Radio Times