Cassandra Quave studies plants and how people use them as a professor at Emory University. She travels around the world, collecting samples and learning about traditional uses of plants, looking for clues that might lead to new medicines.
She’s especially interested in antibiotic resistance. Here in the U.S., at least 2 million people get drug-resistant infections every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and more than 20,000 people die.
In a study published Wednesday, Quave looks not only to plants but also to Civil War history to search for ways to fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
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