The Fungi-Killing Compounds Named after Keanu Reeves, with Dr. Sebastian Goetze

Send us Fan MailIn this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Sebastian Goetze on his and his team's discovery of fungi-killing compounds, which they subsequently named after the famous actor Keanu Reeves. (You can read the study here in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.)While the study has created a lot of buzz for being named after Keanu, in the podcast, Dr. Goetze will describe the need for anti-fungals, particularly in a world experiencing an "anitmicrobial crisis." He will walk us through how they discovered the compounds, break down the chemistry, and teach us what "gene mining" means. He will discuss how these "Keanumycins" may be beneficial for our health (and the Earth's health), the difficult process of developing an anti-fungal drug, safety issues, and answer a question a lot of folks have: why/how he and his team named the compounds after Keanu and not John Wick. He'll end the podcast by describing future avenues of research. Dr. Goetze is a scientist at the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology. You can learn more about him and see his publications here. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subscribe to her newsletter here.Support the show