Something Old Becomes Something New
Norbert, you’ve heard how after much agonizing, I decided to major in biology after I took a course in microbiology. You know, I had the same experience!
I learned a ton and it’s also when I discovered bacteriophages. I couldn’t believe some viruses lived off of killing bacteria. Bacteriophage or “phage” were first identified in the early 1900s but because of their small size were not visualized until electron microscopy became available in the1940s.
Early researchers noticed how quickly phage could clear out bacteria, so before antibiotics were developed in the 40s, researchers studied whether phage could cure bacterial infections.
Now that bacteria are developing resistance to our arsenal of antibiotics, researchers are turning again to phages.
Phages may be ideal since they target the specific bacteria they infect. Antibiotics can be indiscriminate, killing harmful bacteria and those beneficial to our health.
Phages can also be genetically altered to become more efficient killers. It’s already used in cystic fibrosis patients with multi-drug-resistant lung infections.
And in India, it’s being tested on a devastating intestinal pathogen, Vibrio cholerae. With no new antimicrobial medicines being developed, phage therapy is worth pursuing even if they have some big hurdles to clear.
More Information
Phage therapy: An alternative to antibiotics in the age of multi-drug resistance
The practice of phage therapy, which uses bacterial viruses (phages) to treat bacterial infections, has been around for almost a century. Biotechnological advances have further expanded the repertoire of potential phage therapeutics to include novel strategies using bioengineered phages and purified phage lytic proteins.
Advocating for phage therapy
As antibiotic-resistant infections continue to rise globally, the development and application of phage therapy represents not only a promising but also a mandatory alternative approach to tackle this major public-health threat.
Phage therapy: a renewed hope in infectious disease management under the threat of anti-microbial resistance
Infectious diseases are in limelight since the primitive days, because “Health is Wealth” remained
a central theme in the history of human societies. This paper will explore the reasons of AMR in context of bacterial infection
and an optional treatment of MDR bacterial infection, the phage therapy.