Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Cells, Microbes & Viruses => Topic started by: thedoc on 07/06/2016 12:50:01
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Wilfred James asked the Naked Scientists:
Very many years ago, when the widespread use of penicillin in the Western world was discussed on the radio, it was said that the Soviet Union had tried a different approach to killing bacteria using bacteriophages.
From what I gathered at the time, it seemed that these bacteriophages killed many bacteria by consuming them. The penicillin based method killed bacteria by producing an inhospitable environment for the bacteria. This eventually caused the bacteria to develop the ability to survive the inhospitable environment. The bacteriophage method apparently had the advantage that it left no survivors when itworked.
Is there anyresearch being done now on the development of bacteriophages to deal with the increasing resistance of bacteria to modern antibiotics?
Wilf James (now aged 80)
What do you think?
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Is there anyresearch being done now on the development of bacteriophages to dealwith the increasing resistance of bacteria to modern antibiotics?
In the West, no therapies are currently authorized for use on humans, although phages for killing food poisoning bacteria (Listeria) are now in use.
Phages are currently being used therapeutically to treat bacterial infections that do not respond to conventional antibiotics, particularly in Russia and Georgia. There is also a phage therapy unit in Wroclaw, Poland, established 2005, the only such centre in a European Union country.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy
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There is certainly on-going research exploring this area, although it is not a big player therapeutically at the moment.
We interviewed Martha Clokie at the University of Leicester in 2013 about work to develop phages capable of combating Clostridium difficile (C. diff) (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/interviews/interview/1000463/)