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.
The findings have been published in the journal Nature Medicine.
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to GMO
Please do, and die of that next superbug infection that will no longer affect the rest of us. Uncle Chuck says the future will be better off without you.
Nothing new... the Soviets used phages routinely (Score:4, Interesting)
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".
Re:Nothing new... the Soviets used phages routinel (Score:5, Informative)
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]
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Fascinating. Thanks for posting these links.
My daughter is a biology nerd, so this information will lead to some interesting dinner table conversations.
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In other words... In Soviet Russia, you make disease sick.
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Here in America, you cure sickness. In Soviet Russia, sickness cures you.
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I bow to your superior skills ;-)
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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]
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If you want to proclaim GM is nothing "new" (read: novel, different, unusual)
GM, meaning direct human modification of genes, is new. But it is not fundamentally different, and there is no reason to believe that it is more dangerous than selective breeding.
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For some time now we've been told time and time again that "Genetically Modified" is what we've been doing for all of agriculture, if not longer, that it is 100% natural and happens ALL THE TIME. So why is it "Genetically Modified" now and not "evolutionary mutation"???
The headline just uses the liberal definition of GMO ("biology something something that we find scary") and throws it back in their faces.
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Getting rid of superbugs with genetic engineered viruses is like getting rid of weeds with weed killers.
The weeds keep evolving and sooner or later the weed killers aren't as effective anymore.
What you are missing is that weed killer doesn't evolve along with the weeds.
Bacteriophages do evolve, at least as fast as the bacteria they prey on.
Bacteriophages have been around for at least 1.5 Billion years. I think your prediction of their demise may be premature.
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Is it affordable to the general population with regular health care or like those personalized cancer therapies for the rich?
Leading edge treatments are always available first to the rich, but will migrate down the income pyramid in a few years.
One way to look at it is that the rich are helping to fund the research that benefits all of us.
So you should be grateful rather than resentful.
Resentment of the rich is unfair, since most of the didn't even choose to be rich: They were born that way.
Formerly Used in U.S. (Score:1)