About this episode

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss bacteriophages, the viruses that eat bacteria, and their potential benefits in combating antibiotic resistance.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most abundant lifeform on Earth: the viruses that 'eat' bacteria. Early in the 20th century, scientists noticed that something in their Petri dishes was making bacteria disappear and they called these bacteriophages, things that eat bacteria. From studying these phages, it soon became clear that they offered countless real or potential benefits for understanding our world, from the tracking of diseases to helping unlock the secrets of DNA to treatments for long term bacterial infections. With further research, they could be an answer to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance. With Martha Clokie Director for the Centre for Phage Research and Professor of Microbiology at the University of Leicester James Ebdon Professor of Environmental Microbiology at the University of Brighton And Claas Kirchhelle Historian and Chargé de Recherche at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research’s CERMES3 Unit in Paris. Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production Reading list: James Ebdon, ‘Tackling sources of contamination in water: The age of phage’ (Microbiologist, Society for Applied Microbiology, Vol 20.1…

More episodes of In Our Time: Science

• The Mariana Trench · February 19, 2026 · 58 min
• The Evolution of Lungs · July 10, 2025 · 48 min
• Lise Meitner · June 5, 2025 · 57 min
• Pollination · April 3, 2025 · 50 min
• Slime Moulds · January 30, 2025 · 52 min
• The Habitability of Planets · January 9, 2025 · 53 min

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the In Our Time: Science podcast page.