In May, cell biologist and physician Robert Fares received an unusual email. “Have you ever dreamed of singing on stage in an off-Broadway show?” it asked. Mr. Farese, would you like to audition for a musical about penicillin?
“I thought, ‘Excuse me, what?'” said Faris, who works at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. His confusion was natural. Antibiotics are not a common or obvious subject for musicals at all. Where is the drama in medicine?
But the story of penicillin, and many of the antibiotics and other antibacterial drugs that have since been discovered, is actually as classically dramatic as it gets. A sharp-eyed doctor makes a serendipitous and miraculous discovery that revolutionizes the world, saving unimaginable lives and ushering in a new era of medicine. But this new, glorious status quo can only be sustained if we continue to pay attention to what we have been given. And we weren’t paying attention.
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musical lifeline, Fresh off a month-long stint at New York City’s Pershing Square Signature Center, this film follows the story of Alexander Fleming, the microbiologist who discovered the first antibiotic, and modern-day scientists grappling with the growing number of antibiotic failures. It includes the stories of doctors. Farese was one of dozens of rotating chorus members supporting the cast of British actors. On September 26, the United Nations General Assembly’s high-level meeting on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) was held throughout the day and included a theatrical performance. Approved a global action plan to tackle the crisis.
The musical depicts microbiologist Alexander Fleming singing with his wife, Greek doctor Amalia Fleming.
The character Aaron is hospitalized with a resistant infection.
Mae Archacki/Ursa Creatives
The drugs doctors use to treat bacterial, fungal, and other microbial infections are becoming less and less effective around the world as microorganisms evolve to survive exposure to drugs. In 2021, antibiotic-resistant infections caused 1.14 million deaths and were responsible for an estimated 3.57 million deaths. of best quoteA paper just published this month predicts that 39 million people will die from these infections between 2025 and 2050.
Today’s dire situation is the result of overuse or inappropriate use of compounds that kill these microorganisms in both medicine and agriculture. as lifeline Fleming saw this coming all the way back in 1945, when he won the Nobel Prize for this discovery. “The greatest potential for harm…is that by using too little, microorganisms are taught to resist penicillin instead of eliminating the infection,” he wrote in the paper. Interview with new york times that year. “I hope this evil can be avoided.”
In 2016, Megan Perry, an infectious disease clinician at the University of Edinburgh, came up with the idea of using a musical to teach children about antibiotic resistance. So she suggested it to Robin Hiley, a composer and co-founder of the theater company and the spouse of a colleague.
“I was initially a little skeptical that this was a good theme for a musical,” Hiley says. “But like any clinician-scientist, she was persistent.” The earliest iteration of the musical children’s play called The mold that changed the worldstudents perform singing and dancing bacteria and tell the story of Fleming’s discovery of penicillin.
Over time, Hiley, the show’s composer and lyricist, became drawn to Fleming’s life story. This Scottish doctor treated soldiers during World War I. At the time, the first-line treatment for infected wounds was powerful disinfectants that did more harm than good. The discovery of a compound that killed bacteria later turned the shy scientist into an international celebrity.
The next version of the musical was a Fleming biopic for adults., Highley says the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe Festival performance was sold out. In 2022, a longer version toured in Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, with support in part from the nonprofit CDC Foundation.
but The mold that changed the world That was still a thing of the past. “It’s good to tell Fleming’s story, but his story ends in the 1950s. [antimicrobial resistance] “This is a very modern story,” Hiley says. “So we decided to be brave and dismantle the whole thing and create this modern story.”
Fleming sings a duet with the character Jess, a modern-day doctor.
of lifeline A choir of real-life scientists and medical experts.
Mae Archacki/Ursa Creatives
lifeline‘s modern-day story follows a group of fictional friends whose lives are forever changed by an antibiotic-resistant infection. The story is intertwined with Fleming’s story, which unfolds backwards in time, starting in the golden age of antibiotics and ending in the dark days of World War I, giving audiences a chance to learn about the things we often take for granted. It gives a harsh impression of what we have and what we have to lose.
Through two acts, a choir of scientists and medical experts describe real-life cases of antibiotic-resistant infections. “We looked at all the networks and collected the stories of hundreds of people. [about how] AMR affected them,” Hiley says. Some of these stories end with recovery. Some end in tragedy.
“For me, acting out and telling these stories didn’t feel like acting,” says Michelle Chan, a New York City-based infectious disease physician and choir member. “It really felt like I was talking about my work to different people on a different stage.”
Part of Chan’s job includes consulting with physicians to ensure they are prescribing the appropriate antibiotics as part of the hospital’s antimicrobial stewardship program. Many of these programs have sprung up across the country in just the past decade. 2014 only 41% of hospitals There was a comprehensive management program. By 2022, that number will be 97 percent. These management teams collect data on what types of resistant bacteria are circulating in hospitals and consult with physicians to help treat specific patients while preventing the spread of resistant bacteria.
Still, there is no easy solution to this problem of increased resistance. This is a global crisis, with the greatest impact on communities with the least resources. Pakistan is currently in an extremely difficult situation. Outbreak of drug-resistant typhoid fever. This epidemic is primarily associated with lack of access to clean water and primarily affects children.
In writing the musical, “I tried not to say, ‘This is what you have to do,'” Highley says. “It’s not necessarily up to us as artists.”
lifeline Performers closed the United Nations General Assembly session on AMR. They performed songs inspired by Scottish folk music and highlighted the urgent need for governments to take concrete steps to combat antimicrobial resistance. The gathering was one of three “high-level” meetings to be held at the 79th General Assembly this week. The other two addressed sea level rise and nuclear disarmament.
Despite the musical’s dire message, it ends on a hopeful note. The choir breaks the fourth wall, and members introduce themselves to the audience and describe their efforts to help resolve the crisis.
At first, “we didn’t realize how much of an impact we were having on the show,” says the researcher, who studies lipid digestion within cells, which can be important for understanding how pathogens replicate. says Mr. Falaise. “All of a sudden you go from theater to reality. Many of these people are literally on the front lines of this issue. I think that’s very powerful. The first time I saw it, I cried.”
