As antibiotic resistance increases, audacious expeditions are taking the quest for new medicines to the ocean depths, and not a moment too soon

THE 150-kilometre trip out from Chile won’t be comfortable. It will be hot, choppy and take all night. Travelling across this patch of the Pacific Ocean, you run afoul of both El Niño and La Niña, whose perpetual tug of war with the weather can make even the most stoic seafarers lose their lunch.

Luckily, once the crew – an eclectic mix of hardened South American mariners and British salvage engineers – reach their destination, they should find placid waters. That will make it a lot easier for the engines to steady the ship’s position. They certainly can’t use an anchor: out here, the ocean floor is 8 kilometres down, a treacherous abyss known as the Peru-Chile trench. But what the team haul out of these depths could save your life.

The Peru-Chile trench is only the first stop. This year, Marcel Jaspars, a chemist at the University of Aberdeen in the UK, is leading an international raid on the unexplored recesses of the oceans. The exotic organisms that thrive there could be pressed into service against some of our worst enemies, from cancer to drug-resistant bacteria. There’s not much time to lose. Without them, some say we may be heading for an antibiotics apocalypse.

We have always relied on nature to fill our medicine cabinets. Over half of all drugs on the market are either derived from or inspired by plants, animals or bacteria – aspirin is extracted from the bark of the willow tree, penicillin …