The Forgotten Cure Part 1

In the first 4 chapters of The Forgotten Cure we learn about the early discoveries of phage, phage therapy, and phage biology.  Blog about which ideas or observations presented in the first 4 chapters surprised or shocked you concerning the process of scientific discovery? You may use these examples or comment on your own ideas.

• Describe the role that locusts, dysentery and war had in the discovery of bacteriophage.
  • d’Herelle was studying sick locusts and by chance, also discovered bacteriophages in the form of clear circles on plates streaked with bacterial cultures. When WWI started  not long after, there was a pressing need for medicine to treat bacterial diseases such as dysentery. d’Herelle was tasked with analyzing dysentery outbreaks and begin examining stool samples. Again he witnessed the same clear spots on agar streaked with samples of recovering patients and this launched him into hos study of bacteriophages.

• Discuss the characteristics of d’Herelle that led him to be a successful scientist. How did he compare to Georgi Eliava?  What happened to the Eliava’s?
  • d’Herelle was a stubborn, self-educated scientist who was known for being “self-confident, idealistic, outspoken and unafraid of controversy”. These personality traits helped phage therapy gain popular attention worldwide, but not in the scientific community. Georgia Eliava shared a similar privileged upbringing and was able to go to med school. Unlike d’Herelle, Eliava was charming and polished. d’Herelle became a mentor and friend to Eliava and the together they pushed the limits of phage therapy research. Eliava was later arrested and shot to death in the Republic of Georgia where he maintained a risky foreign and aristocrat status in a communist society paranoid of losing power to rebellion and resorting to using fear methods to control the population.

• Discuss the influence war and politics had on the spread of phage therapy.
  • War provided a dire need for treatment against bacterial disease- both in troops and recovering countries. In the case of the Republic of Georgia, the soviet was far behind the leading countries in medicine and science and desperately wanted to catch up. This provided a perfect opportunity for Eliava and d’Herelle to gain support and funding to further study and advance phage therapy.

• What are some of the reasons that the spread of phage therapy failed?
  • One of the main reasons phage therapy fizzled out was the lack of sound scientific testing. Scientists and physicians needed to produce double-bind tests with control groups to effectively demonstrate the capacities of phage therapy. However, it was difficult for doctors to leave out a control group when they wanted to an administer a promising drug to everyone who needed it. Other studies used multiple methods for treatment, leaving it unclear how much part of the recovery phage therapy held. Overall, there were too many conflicting reports on the topic and when antibiotics emerged, it quickly stole the spotlight from phage therapy.

• How did the physicists Delbruck and Luria end up as part of the Phage Group? What contributions did they make to phage biology?  Why did phage biology die out in the 70’s?
  • Delbruck and Luria were both intrigued by the applications of physics in biology. Delbruck began by studying the effects of X-rays on DNA and published a paper that eventually reached Luria. Delbruck’s paper suggested that genes were tangible molecules and the “ultimate units of life”. Luria decided that the bacteriophage, the smallest presumably living thing would be the perfect specimen to test this on. After the two met at a conference, they shared ideas and began to work together. Together they founded a school to attract great scientists to study phage biology. It was the collaboration of this group that lead to the observation of the phage’s tadpole like structure with a head and a tail, and the very important scientific realization that genetic material is housed in DNA, not protein. In the 70’s, phage biology came to an end as antibiotics began to emerge. The phage group were more interested in studying phage to further understand DNA and not as a treatment for bacterial disease. With much stronger literary and scientific support for antibiotics on the rise, phage biology began to die out.