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Medicine Bug Science

Genetically Modified Viruses Help Save a Patient With a 'Superbug' Infection (npr.org) 64

reporter shares a report from NPR: For the first time, scientists have used genetically modified viruses to treat a patient fighting an antibiotic-resistant infection. Isabelle Carnell-Holdaway, 17, began the experimental treatment after doctors lost all hope. She was struggling with a life-threatening infection after a lung transplant. With the new treatment, she has not been completely cured. But the Faversham, England, teenager has recovered so much that she has resumed a near-normal life. The treatment involves a cocktail of three viruses known as "bacteriophages" that specifically attack the dangerous bacterium causing her infection. "These viruses have one specialty: they naturally infect bacteria," reports Live Science. "Once they do so, the viruses replicate inside the bacterial cell, and, through this replicative process, kill the bacterium." The downside with phages is that they're so specific to the bacteria they infect that a phage that works for one patient with a particular infection may not work for another patient infected with the same species of bacteria.

The findings have been published in the journal Nature Medicine.
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Genetically Modified Viruses Help Save a Patient With a 'Superbug' Infection

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  • by Archtech ( 159117 ) on Saturday May 11, 2019 @05:23AM (#58573308)

    Fron an email I sent in October 1997:

    "The Horizon TV program last week had very interesting coverage of the work on bacteriophages done at some Institute in Tbilisi (Tiflis), capital of Georgia in the Caucasus. The angle was that antibiotic-resistant bacteria are spreading (the program opened with a report from Japan of staphylococcus that resists vancomycin, the antibiotic of last resort). Thus going into hospital is becoming risky - catch one of those bugs and you could DIE.

    "The work on phages dates back to the 1910s and 1920s - some bright sparks noticed (much like Fleming with penicillin) that dirty water such as sewage contained both loads of bacteria and phages that attack them. The Georgians spent years isolating hundreds of phages, which were apparently used instead of antibiotics throughout the USSR. Now funding has gone and they are in dire straits - a power cut could destory all the phage samples they keep in their refrigerators. The only drawback to phages is apparently that they are specific, so you need to know exactly which bacterium you are dealing with. The Georgians say bacteria develop resistance to phages too, but more slowly, and there are plenty more because the phages evolve too! This could be a really good line to get into if it pans out... antibiotics may have had their day in the sun".

    • by Archtech ( 159117 ) on Saturday May 11, 2019 @05:42AM (#58573330)

      Further links for anyone interested.

      "Georgia: an unlikely stronghold for bacteriophage therapy" ("The Lancet", 2005)
      https://www.thelancet.com/jour... [thelancet.com]

      "Cured by a virus: Woman receives experimental treatment for debilitating infection"
      https://medicalxpress.com/news... [medicalxpress.com]

      "'The enemy of my enemy is my friend:' Couple turns to viruses to beat back superbug"
      https://www.cbc.ca/news/health... [www.cbc.ca]

      • Fascinating. Thanks for posting these links.

        My daughter is a biology nerd, so this information will lead to some interesting dinner table conversations.

      • In other words... In Soviet Russia, you make disease sick.

        • by fazig ( 2909523 )
          Following the established template of the Russian reversal joke, I see your try and I raise you:
          Here in America, you cure sickness. In Soviet Russia, sickness cures you.
    • by jblues ( 1703158 )
      I watched a program about this on TV (it was that long ago) too.
    • Antibiotics still have a preferred role, and for good reason. Phages are highly specific, which is great for treating dangerous strains; but it also makes them unhelpful without a proper serotyping.
      Antibiotics, broad-spectrum antibiotics to be exact, are fantastic in that you can throw that at most problems. Have a non-specific bacterial inflammation in your throat? BSA. Ate something nasty during your vacation in Indonesia? BSA. In bed with a fever for 5 days? BSA.

      It doesn't always work of course, but it's

      • As a layman, I see phages as an emergency backstop to antibiotics and other treatments.

        Usually when a resistant bacterium is doing real harm, it can be identified and thus pinpointed (if a corresponding phage exists).

        So antibiotics would be like the regular police, with phages as the SAS (or equivalent).

        I do believe that phages have been wrongly neglected in the West, probably because they are not nearly so profitable as antibiotics. That is a political problem that we need to fix.

        • I do believe that phages have been wrongly neglected in the West, probably because they are not nearly so profitable as antibiotics.
          You also could say: they require real work of a "specialist". Instead of writing a prescript for the antibiotics of the day, you actually have to figure, which bacteria, which strain, and which Phage works against it, probably breed the Phage and actually know how to deliver it. That is most certainly not a pill from white or grey powder ...

          However if a high payed specialist wo

        • I do believe that phages have been wrongly neglected in the West, probably because they are not nearly so profitable as antibiotics. That is a political problem that we need to fix.

          No, the problem is their specificity. We have to routinize the process of culturing a phage to treat a single patient, and be able to do it in time to treat the infection.

    • by doug141 ( 863552 )

      Someone tested something over Oakville, Washington on Aug 7, 1994. It started raining human white blood cells in a jelly matrix.
      https://www.kxro.com/20-years-... [kxro.com]

  • The United States used bacteriophages prior to antibiotics. Russia kept using bacteriophages, but they target them to specific illnesses. Doing this properly requires a lab and, in the U.S., probably an insurance review and authorization that would complete some 14 business days after death. Antibiotics control bacteria better, cut out the middle man, and allow our go go capitalist practitioners to punch communism in the nose.

The best defense against logic is ignorance.

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