Chilean scientist hunts for life-saving antibiotics in earth’s driest desert while fighting lithium mining threats

In the stark, otherworldly landscape of Chile’s Atacama Desert, microbiologist Cristina Dorador is racing against time to discover new weapons in humanity’s battle against deadly superbugs. The world’s driest desert, where some weather stations have never recorded rainfall, may hold the key to combating drug-resistant bacteria that claim millions of lives annually worldwide.

Dorador has devoted her career to studying the microscopic life thriving in the Atacama’s salt flats, research she began as a teenager at just 14 years old. Despite the desert’s reputation as one of the most inhospitable places on Earth, these ancient salt formations harbor unique microorganisms that could yield powerful new antibiotics. Her team’s discoveries in this seemingly lifeless terrain are providing crucial insights into how extremophile bacteria survive in conditions similar to Mars – and how their survival mechanisms might save human lives.

However, Dorador’s research has revealed an alarming environmental crisis unfolding beneath the desert’s pristine surface. The booming lithium mining industry, driven by global demand for electric vehicle batteries, is severely disrupting the delicate ecosystem she studies. The mining operations are not only threatening the biodiversity that could hold medical breakthroughs but also devastating local Indigenous communities who have called this region home for generations.

As the world grapples with both a superbug crisis and the urgent need for clean energy solutions, Dorador’s work highlights the complex environmental trade-offs facing our planet. Her mission underscores how protecting Earth’s most extreme ecosystems may be essential for human survival.