Fighting “Superbugs” in the Age of Climate Change

You may have heard of a “superbug” — not an insect, but a strain of bacteria that has become resistant to multiple antibiotics. In a world flooded with antimicrobial medicines, some pathogens are developing immunity to the tools we use against them, creating a nightmare for hospital administrators and infectious disease specialists everywhere. This problem is known as antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and it claims a staggering number of lives worldwide. Bacterial AMR directly causes over a million deaths per year and contributes to millions more.

Duke undergraduate Jaemin Kim has a longstanding interest in AMR and has even done lab work testing hospital sink samples for the presence of these resilient pathogens. But he also knows that global health begins far outside the whitewashed walls of medical centers. Human wellbeing is deeply interconnected with the environment, and it is becoming clearer that climate change is a major factor in the spread of AMR.

Image

Rising temperatures speed up both the spread of bacteria and the evolution of its DNA, giving pathogens a new advantage in their arms race against antimicrobials. In addition, increasingly common adverse weather events like floods can cause healthcare and sanitation systems to break down, giving pathogens more chance to spread. Climate-driven migration has a similar effect. At the same time, climate-related strain on the agricultural sector increases the need for antibiotic use in livestock.

Despite growing evidence connecting climate change to the proliferation of resistant pathogens, most national and global action plans for tackling AMR fail to address this important link. That’s where the Antimicrobial Resistance in a Changing Climate: One Health Policy Framework Bass Connections team comes in. Their aim is to bridge the gap between the science on AMR — which is itself fragmented among multiple academic disciplines — and real-world policy.

When Kim discovered the team, he jumped at the chance to make an impact. “I saw this as a great opportunity to take my interest and my passion for AMR and do something about it beyond producing research — to be able to actually help write and implement policy.”

In the summer of 2025, the team set out address two main questions: what does existing research show about the mechanisms by which climate change worsens AMR, and what policy actions are necessary to address these intersecting crises? 

The team began its work with two undergraduates: Kim, with his wet lab experience, and Xiaohang Lyu, who studies public policy at Duke Kunshan University (DKU). They didn’t divvy up the tasks the way one might expect.

“At first,” Lyu explained, “we decided that I would work more on the policy analysis and Jaemin would work more on the mechanism part. However, he had this brilliant suggestion: why we don't exchange roles?” And so began the team’s quest to bring together insights from human health, animal health and environmental science to create policy recommendations usable by a broad range of stakeholders.

An opportunity arose soon after the school year began. In 2025, the World Health Organization released a draft of its updated Global Action Plan on AMR. The document briefly mentioned climate change but failed to provide policy recommendations addressing its role in the spread of AMR. In response, the Bass Connections team wrote a comment article pointing out this oversight, which was published in The Lancet Planetary Health and included the team’s graduate and undergraduate students as co-authors.

The team pivoted again when they were invited by the AMR Multi-Stakeholder Partnership Platform — which is facilitated by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations Environment Program, World Health Organization and World Organization for Animal Health — to present a webinar on April 30, 2026. The webinar attracted 110 attendees from around the world, including researchers from various disciplines; NGO representatives; industry leaders; and local, national and international policymakers.

Image

The team’s impact in just one year is remarkable, not least because of the challenges they’ve faced. While every Bass Connections team has to contend with students’ and leaders’ busy schedules, this team had to do so across continents. At points in the year, team members were joining online meetings from the U.S., China, Vietnam and Sri Lanka simultaneously. 

“Every week when we meet, I’m surprised that we’re still together,” Annemieke van den Dool quipped with a smile. Van den Dool, assistant professor of environmental policy at DKU, co-leads the team with Gayani Tillekeratne, associate professor in the Duke School of Medicine. In such an interdisciplinary project, van den Dool explained, everyone is working a bit outside their comfort zone as well as their time zone. But she stressed that only this type of intense collaboration can meet the intersecting challenges of climate change and AMR.

Students on the team agreed that the challenge of working across institutions and disciplines was part of what made this project a transformative learning experience. With supportive leaders and intentional collaboration, they were able to explore different academic fields and become part of stakeholder conversations they would not otherwise have been able to access. 

“I think the lesson learned is that you should always aim higher,” Lyu reflected. “Don’t be afraid to try something that you never imagined before.”

As Kim highlighted, bridging science and policy allowed the team to make a real-world impact. “Policy is ineffective if there's no research or evidence backing it up, and research evidence is ineffective if there's no policy using it. Being able to live at that intersection has been really, really fun and exciting.”

Learn More

• A Bass Connections team is working to understand how rising temperatures are shaping health and livelihoods in climate-vulnerable communities in Sri Lanka.
• The Fostering Climate Resilience through Education and Arts team participates in the Ready, Set, Resilience program, which includes Duke's Community Science Initiative and the Museum of Life and Science in Durham.
• Find out more about Bass Connections' commitment to research in global health and health policy & innovation.