Work

Exploring Antibiotic Resistance in Earth’s Coldest Regions

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Antibiotics, important medicines that fight harmful bacteria, face a big problem: bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant. This means that bacteria are changing in ways that antibiotics designed to kill them do not cause any harm anymore. Once only a concern in hospitals, antibiotic-resistance has reached Earth’s coldest places, like glaciers and the Arctic. This article explores how bacteria in these icy places learned to withstand antibiotics and how human activities, like tourism, worsen the problem. Join us on a fascinating journey into the ice, to understand how antibiotic-resistance spreads in these faraway places, how strong these bacteria can be, and how human behavior can play a role in bacterial antibiotic-resistance in icy locations. Together, we will find ways to keep antibiotics working well, to protect people’s health everywhere.

Source: Frontiers for Young Minds

DOI: 10.3389/frym.2025.1468370

Authors: Daniel Gattinger, Valentin Schlenz, Tobias Weil, Birgit Sattler

Institutions: Universität Innsbruck, Austrian Polar Research Institute, Fondazione Edmund Mach

Language: English

Topic: Polar Research and Ecology

Subfield: Ecology

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: diamond

Funders: Tawani Foundation, Provincia Autonoma di Trento, Universität Innsbruck