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Director(s):
SCHWARTZ (MATHIEU), VAN DITZHUYZEN (Anaïs)
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Producer(s):
TOURNEZ S'IL VOUS PLAÎT PRODUCTION, ARTE FRANCE
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Territories:
Worldwide.
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Production year:
2024
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Language(s):
German, English, French
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Rights:
TV, NON-THEATRICAL, INTERNET, VOD
Researchers are delving into the grimoires of the brilliant medieval Arab civilization to find treatments for infectious diseases. Over a 1000 years ago, Arabic scientists initiated modern pharmacy by bringing together knowledge from ancient history and faraway lands, which they then experimented with and enriched.
To help invent the medicines of the future, a cross-disciplinary team has come up with an innovative approach: making something new out of something old! A microbiologist with a passion for history and a historian who was also trained to be a chemist, immersed themselves into old manuscripts from the medieval Arab world, which dated back to the year 1000, to unearth forgotten anti-infective treatments, replicate and test them in a lab. Using modern techniques, the team hopes to derive new antibiotics and thus contribute to the fight against antibiotic resistance, which is one of the greatest challenges that medicine is facing today. In following their quest, we uncover a fascinating and little-known period of history, between the 7th and 15th centuries, when a brilliant civilization stretched from Spain to the banks of the Indus. These two stories, though a millennium apart, are proof that the future can be rooted in a brilliant past, provided we can revive long-neglected knowledge.