NoMoreNicksLeft

I hope that my own comments here haven't been as wild and unconsidered as some. I do not (generally) believe in the efficacy of herbal or folk remedies. I do not believe that antibiotics or any other useful medicine could be cooked up without preparation, practice, long and difficult study, and the proper tools... and I suspect any attempt to find shortcuts on any of these things would in fact be dangerous. Bacteriophages could be useful, but those are things that the most skilled researchers and lab workers can't make use of. Zero chance of an amateur, even one doing what it takes, being able to produce those. Some of my questions were naive, but I was trying to find starting points. Strictly speaking, it shouldn't be necessary to get a degree in pharamcological engineering to do these things... though anything other than that would certainly be the hard road. Anyone who thinks that this is something you could do without devoting decades of your life to shouldn't bother to start, and anyone that thinks that testing any products on themselves is a good idea should have a legal guardian protecting their interests. In the intervening months, I have read as extensively as I could on this subject. My own suspicions are that one would have to spend a minimum of thousands of dollars on a home lab, itself capable of creating undue suspicion with the authorities, and that you spend 5 years before you had anything to show for it, just practicing. It could take that or longer to learn proper sterile technique outside of an occupational or educational setting, let alone many of the other things one would need to learn. As a hobby, this would certainly count as one of the most esoteric out there.

toady, Human beings are naturally flawed, and while we were fortunate enough to have all the resources that would be required to go to the stars and survive as a species for millions, if not billions, of years, we've been doing some really foolish things. Our access to cheap and easy energy is about to come to an end, at about the same time people are overreacting to environmental concerns. If we do not find a solution (fusion) or at least accept the interim solution (nuclear... though this would be tough, it doesn't translate to fuel easily or efficiently), we will have to make do with inferior sources. That would likely be a death spiral. You don't keep cranking out the steel and concrete if you're waiting for the clouds to pass so you can have electricity. As for penicillin, you're aware of what it does, right? It's a chemical that is only mildy toxic to humans (if even that), but extremely toxic to bacteria. For this reason (and a few others), it is used to treat bacterial infections. Without it and similar drugs, many people would now die that don't. If you can't make it yourself, and if there is a doomsday, you'll have to go without it. And that's unacceptable to me. Even small cuts can kill sometimes, if not treated. I would practice making it, but I wouldn't use it. Not now, anyway... why use homemade stuff when the commercial variety is superior? Still, I'd have to dispose of what I made in the meantime... and flushing it down the toilet isn't a good idea. It's possible that it could lead to resistance in some bacteria in a sewage plant somewhere, that would later come back to harm someone else. So it would need to be destroyed by incineration, I think. Only if "doomsday" ever came, would I use it, and only then after exhausting any stockpiles of the superior commercial variety. It may be a little silly of me, but I want to be prepared. The world that the previous generation has left for you is rather grim, in my opinion.

Once I have all the equipment I'll need, I'll still need to practice regularly, to have any chance of making the stuff. Which leads me to a good question, what do you do with the products of the practice? Flushing it down a toilet is a bad idea... that leads to bacterial resistance problems. I think you'd almost need some way of incinerating the antibiotics.

At least for penicillin, there is a source for your original culture, but I've had no luck with variant antibiotics. I'd be happy if someone could just tell me what equipment is even necessary. Some things are obvious to even someone like me (autoclave would be really good, tanks for growth... should these be stainless steel, plastic, what? Equipment to monitor and regulate temperature, etc) but other things I'm less sure of. In some ways, you want a basic biological lab, but for other things, it's more of a chemistry lab. How do you filter out the antibiotic from the growth medium? Is there any way to purify it? Can these be made into tablets, or is it liquid only? Then, you almost need to keep a reference culture of staph with which to test against. And how in the hell can do you do that without agar? Even for a lab, it's not equipment that will last forever... they use consumable/disposable items like everything else. And, if you're want antibiotics of several varieties, you might as well add the GM yeast that produces insulin to your wishlist. Though how likely it is that you could acquire that...

Well, Skeptic, I never intended to actually have to identify the mold unless I had to. I'd be happy to pay the $15 and have a guaranteed sample sent to me. If I had to start from scratch, I would fail. Thank you for the anecdotes, even if not perfectly relevant, I learn from things like that. Would you want nucleic sequencing equipment even for a project like the one I am suggesting? Is that even available in prices less than tens of thousands?

I really do have some idea how insulin is manufactured... I believe they started using the genetically modified yeast to do this as early as 1978. Just thought I managed to stumble upon a source for the culture itself. Not familiar with the jargon, so the listing was difficult to understand. As for pharmaceutical grade drugs, I'm not suggesting this is possible. However, there must exist an entire spectrum between this and the crude "soup" you speak of. For instance, your profile says that you're an industrial microbiologist. I would expect that even given generally the same tools, you would be able to produce a better grade of medicine than I. Much of what would be required (though not all) must be skill. In fact, I expect that if you were to find the rare person who runs the penicillium vats at a pharm. company, he'd do better yet than even you would (assuming this isn't what you do yourself). For instance, it would seem to me that one could test the efficacy of the antibiotic. From what I've been able to glean via google, this is generally a test against some reference strain of bacteria (staph?). The details were unclear, of course... were they merely measuring the diameter of the kill zone caused by the penicillin against some standard? Were they putting it under a microscope and counting surviving bacteria within a square millimeter? I couldn't tell from the terse description. But whatever the details, this seems possible. Hell, even if that's not the case, then how else would someone test it? I honestly can't tell you the difference between a mass spectrometer and a gas chromatograph (in fact, one seems more like an astronomy tool, or so my fuzzy suspicion is hinting), they're just words to me. But if indeed some piece of equipment like this is needed to test it, I don't see why this would be an obstacle. One would only need the electricity to run it... something that's implied by the whole premise. Without juice, will you be able to do the temperature control you need? The aeration of the vat? I know nothing of lab techniques. Didn't go to college, highschool was some dumb smalltown. But if I had to make a totally uninformed guess, I'd be more worried about the consumables a lab uses. Isn't agar made from seaweed from India? Wouldn't be much of that around in the irradiated wastelands. I do not know if there would be a suitable substitute (animal gelatin, perhaps?). And what might you need for chemicals? Chlorine bleach, if it is used, would be all but impossible, once you're no longer able to scavenge more. I do not know that I could do any of this, or that I'd even want to try. But, at least some of the equipment are things that I would want to own... I've been interested in growing culinary mushrooms for awhile now. So, among other things, I'd have an excuse to own an autoclave, if only they weren't so damn expensive.

I really don't know... if I was going to the trouble of preparing for some Mad-Max-esque apocalypse, to the point that I'm squirreling away penicillin mold cultures, I'd probably go all the way and get a proper autoclave. Though, the rest of it isn't all that clear to me. Just what sort of vat would a person want? It'd have to be fairly big, but somehow sterilizable. Centrifuges? Filters? What do you do with the liquid, is there any way to turn it into tablets of some kind, or is it liquid only? How would you store it, for how long? I need to do more research. I'd also be interested in knowing whether Penicillium chrysogenum is the only one generally available to the public. Wikipedia suggests that not all antibiotics are synthesized chemically, but that some besides the old standby are cultured from either molds or bacteria. Would you have to bribe someone $10,000 at Eli Lily to get ahold of those? Would it even make sense to split your efforts on trying for two or more different antibiotics? For that matter, what other medicines besides antibiotics are even possible (from a biological standpoint, anything synthesized and not cultured might as well be a rocketship, for all that you'd ever be able to produce it) ? Tamiflu and relenza (flu antivirals) are out. Both chemical. Insulin maybe? Supposedly that's just a yeast culture. A few medicines on the WHO's list of essential medicines are plant based, and might be doable, but how much use would a person have for atropine... expecting any nerve gas attacks? Things like anaesthetics could be useful, but you'd still have to find a proper surgeon for them to be so. (This may be arrogance) but I think that I could probably identify the need to use antibiotics and use them properly if forced to, but the rest excepting insulin would only do any good for proper doctors. Kinda depressing. Hope civilization doesn't go away any time soon. Another question... I spent a half hour screwing around looking for insulin cultures, and I found this. However, I am a layman and it's unclear if this is the culture from which to produce insulin, or just insulin itself. http://www.invitrogen.com/site/us/en/home/Products-and-Services/Applications/BioProduction/BP-Misc/Recombinant-Human-Insulin-Reagent.html Willing to confirm it for a moron? Also, any idea if a layman could just place an order (assuming it is the culture), or would something like that require academic/scientific credentials? Gah. On closer examination, wondering if this is just the nutrient stuff you feed the little yeasties...

Willing to speculate on how much you'd have to try to culture? The industrial makers use vats that are hundreds or thousands of gallons... but surely that is for many, many doses worth. Would something in the 10-50 gallon range be adequate for a few doses/courses worth? How much would this depend on the yield of your strain of the mold? Some things I read suggest that it's not as important as ensuring that the culture is kept clean of bacteria, which can produce enzymes that destroy the penicillin. That would imply that good sterile techniques are more important than just about any other factor. They also seem to use centrifuges to separate the mold itself from the liquid. Now, those aren't cheap, but someone with some mechanical engineering skill could manage something like it. (There are centrifuges on ebay in the sub-$400 range, but these seem suited only for a dozen test tubes at a time, inadequate if you're doing a batch of 50 gallons.) Filtering the liquid afterward would remove any particulates. Still, aren't there other substances in it that you'd want to remove? And if a person were inclined to test the efficacy of the resulting anti-biotic, what's required there? Do you need or would you want to test it on animals, lab mice or the like? Or would a few cultures of staph in a petri dish be enough for this? And, should our hypothetical doomsday occur, would you immediately want to break out the Penicillium chrysogenum and start culturing it continuously, so that you had enough practice to get it right when it counts? You can't wait until someone has the infection that requires it, I think, because we're talking what, 2 weeks or more from start to finish, even if you're quick with practice. For that matter, in the years between doomsday and actual need, can you stockpile the output of your practice (assuming it meets whatever quality standards you have)? Will it store under refrigeration?

You answered most of them well enough. I did find this link: http://www.carolina.com/product/living+organisms/fungi/penicillium+camemberti,+living,+plate.do I don't know if $14 is a good "nuclear war, collapse of civilization" insurance price. But it's cheap enough that someone could tinker with it. I also don't think someone like me could really do much with it though. I'm a highschool flunky, and I know just enough to know some (not even all) of the things I don't know that would be needed. I think it's a bit more than having good sterile technique. Hell, to harvest the penicillin itself is almost an engineering sort of thing. I would love to discuss it further though, if you're interested in doing so. If you aren't, I understand, this stuff is probably pretty boring for someone who does this for a living.

SkepticLance, you suggested that someone should buy a sample from scientific supply company if they were interested in experimenting with this. I found your answer via google, and i registered just to reply. I'm curious about several things. First, would such a sample be one of the industrial high-yielding strains, or do drug companies keep those for themselves? Second, what kind of setup would it require for a person to be able to produce significant amounts, say, enough to produce a 3 week course of antibiotics for a single person? Finally, would it even be safe to do so? I can imagine that with practice, even a layman might manage to get good at growing mold (some of us have quite a bit of accidental practice *chuckle*). I can even see that with practice and a decent microscope, a layman might be able to detect contamination from other molds, and discard any such. But doesn't this mold produce other compounds that would be unsafe, that are filtered out somehow? Granted, in any normal situation where professionally manufactured antibiotics are available, I'd choose those over anything "homemade" without hesitation. But mostly as an intellectual puzzle, I am curious about what would be possible/plausible if such were ever unavailable. The shelf life of many of these medicines is rather short. PS Would the freeze dried specimen last long? Is that something that could be chucked into a cold freezer as insurance against doomsday?