The Lifeline Project

Lifeline has been in production for nearly a decade. In that time, much has changed but the core scientific and social message has always stayed the same.

In this episode we talk to Robin Hiley, composer, Becky Hope-Palmer, book writer, and Dr Meghan Perry, scientific advisor who have been three of the people closest to the action making Lifeline what it is today. If you're interested in finding out what it takes to make a musical ...

How do you fit the nearly hundred year history of antimicrobials in agriculture and the environment into one song? Buckle up.

Talking about the antibiotic emergency under the banner of One Health means not only taking in the history of drugs in medicine but also the wild ways they have been used in animals and their effect on the environment. Helping us navigate this huge topic are 'bugs and drugs' historian Dr Claas Kirchhelle and...

Kevin Brown wrote the book on Alexander Fleming. Rob Hiley wrote the musical. Who better to ask about the man behind the mould?

Alexander Fleming has been described as a man of few words and a poor public speaker and yet, after pencilling became widely available, he became the spokesperson for the drug travelling the world to plaudits and prizes. So what was he really like? And is he really the perfect subject for a piece of musica...

One of our biggest supporters over the last few years has been Dame Sally Davies, the former haematologist, civil servant, Chief Medical Officer of the UK and the current master of Trinity College and UK’s Special Envoy on AMR. She’s also a legend.

During her career, she has seen the face of medicine change, from a time when we had a choice of drugs from the medicine cabinet, to a world where the AMR is clearing those same cabinets...

Ingrid was young and starting her career as a dietician when two years of hospitalisation, injections and recovery which changed her life forever.

In this episode we focus on Tuberculosis, or TB, a disease with a long history in humans which is both curable and preventable but continues to kill 1.2 million people every year. It’s also got some pretty nasty resistant forms of the disease, which are becoming much more common especial...

Jess is a doctor, Aaron is a patient, Julian is in a position of power. Together, they are the three friends whose story is at the heart of the show.

Anyone from any background can become an antimicrobial steward, someone who spreads the word about AMR and encourages people to use antimicrobials efficiently. When Aaron gets sick, all three of the friends explore stewardship and what that means to their professional and personal bon...

AMR is a problem with a plethora of solutions...and plenty of barriers to reach them.

In this episode we look at the role innovation can play – innovating new antibiotics, relatively unexplored treatments and preventing infection in the first place. So how expensive is it to make a new antibiotic? Are viruses actually our friends? And what does it have to do with the whales?

Featuring:

Silas Holland, Executive director in infectiou...

Who killed Mrs X?

Was it her husband, infecting her with a resistant bacterium? Was it the pharmacist, who sold Mr X the antibiotics? Or was it the system that allowed him to get the antibiotics in the first place?

In this episode we delve into the world of antimicrobial resistance and antibiotics, finding out about the link between the two and how AMR is making our medicines ineffective. Joining us this week are:

Prof Bob Phillips...

The Lifeline project is a podcast exploring the science and process behind the musical, Lifeline, a show about antibiotics, Alexander Fleming, and the biggest current global health crisis you might never have heard of.

The first episode is a potted history of the show and it's principal cast members - not the actors, the microbes that help make their bodies function. From the pathogens that make us sick to our microbiomes which hel...