Editor鈥檚 note: This is the fourth article in a聽聽on 海角精品黑料. Catch up and聽聽about scientists鈥� concerns about Shark Week shows sensationalizing the fear associated with the creatures, about what great white sharks are doing off the coast in the mid-Atlantic聽or the 聽on learning the secrets of a shark鈥檚 life cycle.
CAPE MAY, N.J. 鈥� Someday, if you get sick and your doctor prescribes antibiotics to make you better, you may be able to thank a shark.
Dr. Kim Ritchie, a microbiologist and molecular biologist, thinks bacteria found on great white sharks could be a new source of antibiotics in the ongoing war against drug-resistant infections.
Ritchie 鈥� who is an associate professor in the natural sciences department at the University of South Carolina at Beaufort 鈥� was among scientists taking part in this summer’s mid-Atlantic expedition by the shark-tagging-and-tracking group OCEARCH.
海角精品黑料’s Michelle Basch spent a day aboard the group’s namesake research vessel talking with several scientists about their research projects.
Ritchie’s goal was to get right up next to captured sharks to obtain bacteria samples.
“We have to be able to swab different surfaces of the shark and get inside its mouth,” she said.
During a previous OCEARCH expedition out of South Carolina, Ritchie took samples from four sharks.
“We’ve got some nice hits, some nice antibiotic-producing bacteria,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e’re going to be working on those samples from the last trip for quite some time.”
Sharks heal quickly and have very effective immune systems, qualities which Ritchie has also found in stingrays. Earlier this month, 聽was published.
“We’ve found probably hundreds [of bacteria] associated with stingrays that we’re pushing toward drug discovery once we find some partners,” Ritchie said.
The possibility that studying sharks could lead to medical breakthroughs is just one reason why Ritchie said we need to protect them and other ocean creatures.
“They are this treasure trove of things that we’re just starting to understand, and if they’re gone, we won’t be able to see what we’re missing.”
OCEARCH is a nonprofit group, and you can help fund their work by donating through .
