In college, Dianne didn't take any biology classes (she was a German studies major). But she was curious about almost everything, so in her first semester of graduate school, she tried an environmental microbiology class. She fell in love.
Dianne Newmann is now a microbiologist at Caltech, studying bacteria and the antibiotic resistance they sometimes develop. She recently discovered that in regions of the world that have experienced a drought, the amount of antibiotic resistant bacteria increases in the soil, as well as in nearby hospitals. As our climate changes, droughts could become a more regular occurrence; antibiotic resistant bacteria could travel all around our interconnected world, she notes.
As pharmaceutical companies put an end to their antibiotic development programs, Dianne says, "It's really important that governments step in and continue to support the development of basic research for new drugs, because sometimes the profit incentive sadly isn't there for big pharmaceutical companies. And yet this is going to be a huge public health crisis."