What is the history of phage therapy?
Isolated from Western advances in antibiotic production in the 1940s, Russian scientists continued to develop already successful phage therapy to treat the wounds of soldiers in field hospitals. During World War II, the Soviet Union used bacteriophages to treat many soldiers infected with various bacterial diseases e.g. dysentery and gangrene.
Should the FDA approve phage therapy?
Due to the specificity of phages, phage therapy would be most effective with a cocktail injection, which is generally rejected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Researchers and observers predict that for phage therapy to be successful the FDA must change its regulatory stance on combination drug cocktails.
What is a phage used to treat?
This means that a phage can be used to directly target disease-causing bacteria. For example, a strep bacteriophage will only kill bacteria that cause strep throat infections. Phages work against both treatable and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. They may be used alone or with antibiotics and other drugs.
How many Americans get phage therapy each year?
She estimated that Eliava’s phage therapy center gets around 15 to 20 Americans every year. “There really is, thankfully, some momentum building … around these non-traditional therapies,” said Dr. Helen Boucher, an infectious disease specialist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, who is not involved with the UCSD project.
Who created the first phage treatment center?
The first clinical application of bacteriophages was by Felix d'Hérelle in 1919,5 with the first reported use in the United States in 1922. The period from the early 1920s to the late 1930s saw an increasing use of bacteriophages to treat infectious diseases worldwide.
Has phage therapy been approved?
No form of phage therapy is currently FDA approved, so it can only be used in emergency, experimental, or compassionate use cases. The rise of antibiotic resistance may have one silver lining.
When is phage therapy used?
Phage therapy (PT) is also called bacteriophage therapy. It uses viruses to treat bacterial infections. Bacterial viruses are called phages or bacteriophages. They only attack bacteria; phages are harmless to people, animals, and plants.
Is phage therapy available in North America?
Although scientists have been aware of phages and their ability to kill bacteria since 1917, the first U.S.-based clinical trials of phage therapy have only recently begun. Individual U.S. patients have received phage therapy, but only under emergency investigational new drug protocols.
Are phages approved by the FDA?
Under the FDA emergency Investigational New Drug allowance, Adaptive Phage Therapeutics has been allowed to administer their phage therapy to 30 COVID19 critical patients, in those cases, the standard care of antibiotics have failed.
Why are phages not used?
With the exception of treatment options available in a few countries, phages have been largely abandoned as a treatment for bacterial infection. One main reason is because antibiotics have been working well enough over the past 50 years that most countries have not re-initiated a study on the clinical uses of phages.
What countries use phage therapy?
Phage therapy is used in Russia, Georgia and Poland, and was used prophylactically for a time in the Soviet army. In Russia, extensive research and development soon began in this field. In the United States during the 1940s commercialization of phage therapy was undertaken by Eli Lilly and Company.
Is phage therapy better than antibiotics?
Phage therapy has fewer side effects than antibiotics. On the other hand, most antibiotics have a much wider host range. Some antibiotics can kill a wide range of bacterial species at the same time. The human immune system sometimes recognizes phages as “foreigners” and try to kill them.
What diseases are currently treated by phage therapy?
To give but a few examples, phages have been reported to be effective in treating staphylococcal lung infections (22, 33), P. aeruginosa infections in cystic fibrosis patients (50), eye infections (43), neonatal sepsis (38), urinary tract infections (40), and surgical wound infections (39, 41).
Will phage therapy replace antibiotics?
Phages most likely will never replace antibiotics completely; however, they will be valuable in the treatment of infections caused by multidrug resistant bacteria. Antibiotics will still remain the main treatment for the majority of infections, especially the acute ones, for a long time.
Is phage therapy available in Canada?
Phage therapy may not be available in Canada but it did start here over 100 years ago. French Canadian scientist Felix d'Herelle co-discovered these micro killers in 1917. Early studies showed they were very good at controlling outbreaks of dysentery and typhoid plague.
Are bacteriophages harmful to humans?
Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria but are harmless to humans. To reproduce, they get into a bacterium, where they multiply, and finally they break the bacterial cell open to release the new viruses. Therefore, bacteriophages kill bacteria.
What is phage therapy?
The practice of phage therapy, which uses bacterial viruses (phages) to treat bacterial infections, has been around for almost a century. The universal decline in the effectiveness of antibiotics has generated renewed interest in revisiting this practice. Conventionally, phage therapy relies on the use of naturally-occurring phages to infect ...
Where is phage therapy performed?
Human trials for phage therapy have taken place for almost a century at several institutes in Eastern Europe, the most famous of which are the Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage and the Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy in Wroclaw, Poland.
What are the two proteins that are used in phage lysis?
One of which is the transmembrane protein holin and the other is a peptidoglycan cell wall hydrolase called endolysin (lysin). These two proteins work together in triggering the lysis of the bacterial cell.
What is phage cocktail?
For treatment, lytic phages are compiled into preparations called “phage cocktails” which consist of multiple phages proven to have in vitroefficacy against the target pathogen. HISTORY OF PHAGE THERAPY.
What is the use of phages?
The use of naturally-occurring phages to treat bacterial infection has a contentious history in western medicine. However, the emergent landscape of phage-based antimicrobials has advanced well beyond traditional methods.
Do lysogenic phages have DNA?
In contrast to lytic phages, lysogenic phages integrate their genetic material into the bacterial chromosome in the form of an endogenous prophage (less commonly phage DNA can remain separate as a plas mid but still be stably transmitted across bacterial generations).
Can phages be used as a supplement?
Current research on the use of phages and their lytic proteins, specifically against multidrug-resistant bacterial infections, suggests phage therapy has the potential to be used as either an alternative or a supplement to antibiotic treatments.
When was phage therapy discovered?
Current day. Western scientists “re-discovered” phage therapy in the 1980s. Since then, the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains has continued to further interest in phage therapy as a potential alternative.
When were phages first used?
The first known therapeutic use of phages occurred in 1919, when d'Herelle and several hospital interns ingested a phage cocktail to check its safety, then gave it to a 12-year-old boy with severe dysentery. The boy’s symptoms cleared up after a single dose and he fully recovered within a few days.
Why is phage therapy so difficult?
That’s because phage therapy is almost 100 years old, making it difficult to patent and generate revenue to justify the initial development costs.
What was the purpose of the phages?
In the 1940s, the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly produced phages for human use in the U.S., and they were marketed to treat a range of bacterial infections, including in wounds and upper respiratory infections.
Where do bacteriophages come from?
Derived from the Greek words meaning “bacteria eater,” bacteriophages are abundant everywhere — on land, in water, within any form of life harboring their target. According to Forest Rowher, PhD, a microbial ecologist at San Diego State University, and colleagues in their book Life in Our Phage World, phages cause a trillion trillion successful ...
Where did phage therapy fall out of favor?
Phage therapy fell out of favor in the U.S. and most of Europe with the advent of antibiotics. Only in regions where antibiotics were not as easily accessed — namely what is now Russia, Poland and the Republic of Georgia — did phage therapy and commercial production continue.
When was the first phase 1 clinical trial?
In the 2000s, human experiments began again and data from the first phase I clinical trial in the U.S. was published in 2009. That trial tested the safety of a cocktail of phages specific for E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa in 42 patients with chronic leg ulcers.
When were phages used as therapeutic agents?
However, their use as therapeutic agents, during a number of trials from the 1920s to the 1950s , was greatly handicapped by a number of factors. In part, there were certain limitations inherent in phage physiology (e. g. narrow host range, and rapid clearance from the body); in part there were technological limitations in the era (e.g.
Can phages be used to treat human infections?
In recent years, well-controlled animal models have demonstrated that phages can rescue animals from a variety of fatal infections, while non-controlled clinical reports published in Eastern Europe have shown that phages can be effective in treating drug-resistant infections in humans.
When was phage therapy invented?
Use of phages, viruses that kill bacteria as therapeutics, was developed in Paris around 1920. Since these viruses could be safely used to treat patients, phage therapy quickly spread, but then slowly disappeared from the western world decades later, as antibiotics became common.
Can phage therapy save lives?
Forgotten tale of phage therapy history revealed. In the current situation when the fear of virus infections in the public is common , it is good to remember that some viruses can be extremely beneficial for mankind, and even save lives. Such viruses—phages—infect bacteria.
Is natural selection a post-antibiotic era?
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that we are reaching the post-antibiotic era.
Was Brazil a phage therapy country?
Historical medical records in Portuguese (1915-1952) revealed that Brazil was a strong user and developer of phage therapy. From pioneer mass testing of phage products to routine use, details have been uncovered about the safe use of phages against dysentery and staphylococcal infections.
What was the history of phages?
Phages Attack. A History of Bacteriophage Production and Therapeutic Use in Russia. In Russia, bacteriophages have been produced and used for medical purposes for almost 80 years: during World War II, phages saved lives of thousands of wounded soldiers and prevented a cholera epidemic in the besieged Stalingrad before the famous Battle ...
Why did hospitals use bacteriophages?
The reason was the inevitable lack of hygiene in the field conditions. Later, hospitals began to use the wound infection bacteriophages that proved effective during the Russian–Finnish war. These drugs helped reduce the stay of a wounded soldier in a field hospital to a week.
How long does it take for a bacteriophage to double?
It is only active bacteriophages, which double the number of corpuscles in about 10 minutes – a criterion for the high virulence of a bacteriophage race – that have therapeutic value.
What is the purpose of bacteriophage control?
The control must ensure the high quality of the product, its sterility, and the absence of harmful effects when the product is administered into the body.
Which country is the leader in bacteriophage production?
Today, Russia remains the world leader in the production ...
Where are bacteriophages produced?
To this end, the producers use ultrafiltration, which increases the safety of the drugs. Bacteriophages are currently produced in Russia on an unprecedented scale, like nowhere else in the world.
Where was the cholera epidemic?
Thus, in 1938 there was a cholera epidemic in several areas of Afghanistan near the Soviet border. To prevent the spread of this serious bacterial disease, it was decided to use the cholera bacteriophage. The phage drug was given to the local population and put into wells and ponds. As a result, not a single case of cholera was recorded on ...
Where is the first phage therapy center?
Now, the U.S. is getting its first phage therapy center, at the University of California, San Diego. Its mission is to run clinical trials, but also to streamline the mad dash to secure the right phage before a patient dies. In some ways, the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics simply gives a name — ...
When did phages go out of fashion?
With the rise of antibiotics in the 1930s and ’40s, phages went out of fashion in the U.S. But the person who had named them, a Canadian microbiologist named Felix d’Herelle, moved to Tbilisi, in the republic of Georgia, continuing his research at an institute that attracted the admiration of Joseph Stalin himself.
What is a Bacteriophage?
June 21, 2018. Reprints. Bacteriophage are viruses that infect bacteria. David Gregory & Debbie Marshall/ Wellcome Collection. W hen her husband was dying of a drug-resistant infection, Steffanie Strathdee had a last-ditch idea. They could try treating him with a virus that would kill the bacteria colonizing his insides.
Why did Strathdee die?
In almost every case, there was someone dying because of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Viruses that had specifically evolved to kill those microbes might be able to help. Sometimes, Strathdee and her network couldn’t act fast enough, and the patient died. But occasionally, it worked out.
Is phage therapy experimental?
Phage therapy is still very much experimental — but it’s come a long way since then. New companies have popped up, hoping to get approval to sell these viruses as drugs. A phage directory has come together, lab by lab, helping doctors figure out who has which virus. Now, the U.S. is getting its first phage therapy center, ...
Do you need to purify phages before delivery?
And then you need to purify it before delivery, so there aren’t any bacterial leftovers that might poison the person instead of saving them.
Did the Eliava Institute keep the flame of phage therapy alive?
Even after d’Herelle’s death, the Eliava Institute kept the flame of phage therapy alive. That hardly helped the viruses’ reputation in America during the Cold War. “It was commie science; there was a taint to it,” explained Dr. William Summers, a phage biologist, historian, and professor emeritus at Yale University.
Why is phage therapy important?
Phage therapy may be very important in treating infections that don’t respond to antibiotics. For example, it may be used against a powerful Staphylococcus (staph) bacterial infection called MRSA. There have been successful cases of phage therapy use.
Why is phage therapy used in food?
Phage therapy in food prevents bacteria that can cause food poisoning, such as: Salmonella.
What is a phage used for?
This means that a phage can be used to directly target disease-causing bacteria. For example, a strep bacteriophage will only kill bacteria that cause strep throat infections. Phages work against both treatable and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. They may be used alone or with antibiotics and other drugs.
Why are phages used in experimental studies?
One reason for this is because antibiotics are more easily available and are considered to be safer to use. There is ongoing research on the best way to use bacteriophages in people and animals. The safety of phage therapy also needs more research.
What are the benefits of phage therapy?
Phage therapy benefits. The benefits of phage therapy address the shortcomings of antibiotics. Just as there are many kinds of bacteria, there are several types of bacteriophages. But each kind of phage will only attack a certain bacterium. It won’t infect other kinds of bacteria.
Where are phages found?
They’re found in soil, sewage, water, and other places bacteria live. These viruses help keep bacteria growth in check in nature. Phage therapy might sound new, but it has been used for 100. Trusted Source. years.
Can phages be used in animals?
Phages are currently difficult to prepare for use in people and animals. It’s not known what dose or amount of phages should be used. It’s not known how long phage therapy may take to work. It may be difficult to find the exact phage needed to treat an infection.