Lake Baikal and remote Siberian caves hold key to new advances in antibiotics

A global and highly competitive search is underway for new bacteria strains leading to fresh sources of antibiotics, with ‘great potential’ for SIberia to lead the way, according to leading scientists. 

Maxim Timofeyev, director of the R&D Biology Institute at Irkutsk State University, said: ‘One of the ways to find something new is to look somewhere where no one has ever looked before. 

‘We have found two locations which we’re studying now. These are ancient caves and Baikal which have not been studied in this regard. Nature is still providing us with a massive area to study.’

Dr Denis V. Axenov-Gribanov, a leading specialist at R&D Biology Institute, heads the study of new microorganisms. Picture: ISU, Denis Axenov-Gribanov

The search for new microorganisms producing new biologically active substances with antibiotic properties has particularly great potential in Siberia and at Baikal. On the one hand, our lands are far away from global research institutions, and on the other, we have multiple unique locations – unstudied and isolated caves and Lake Baikal with its ancient ecosystem.

Dr Denis V. Axenov-Gribanov, a leading specialist at the same institute, said: ‘One of the features of Siberian caves is that they are rather cold, only 2 to 4C. 

‘Among the caves of the Baikal region the most attractive for researchers are ancient and ramified caves such as Botovskaya, Okhotnichya and those of the Tazheranskaya steppe.