Kirsty Smitten is 28. She has a PhD in Chemistry. She has discovered two new types of antibiotics. And set up her own company to market them. She is being written about in Forbes. She may even be up for a Nobel Prize. Which she she almost certainly will not live to collect, as she will probably die very soon from a rare form of inherited heart tumour. You can read the full story here from Helen Carroll of the Mail. [1]
If the discoveries prove viable (and there is no reason to suspect they will not) her short life will have left humanity enriched. She has given us something far more valuable than all the posh handbags, private jets, luxury cars, interior design schemes in the world rolled together. And how very much more might she and her teams create, if she is yet granted a full life? We still hope that some miracle will save her, but if it does not, we all must face some profound questions
What is the nature of real wealth, and how do we preserve and create it? If we had spent a little more on heart research, and cancers, and a little less on beer and cigarettes, might that have guaranteed her life? And how many other lives would that have saved in turn? What might happen if all those football supporters, or Arabs and Israelis, stopped fighting each other and set up medical research institutes instead. We owe it to Kirsty to find answers.
#antibiotic resistance #microbes #research #medicine
Learning, Science and Society 