March
14
The Forgotten Cure Chapters 5-8
- The Soviet State healthcare system definitely hurt the spread of phage therapy and hindered the treatment of infectious diseases. For one, the resources were severely depleted in the country, along with a shortage of advanced medical knowledge. Penicillin and streptomycin seemed promising but it lacked momentum once it first hit Russia. Also, the fact that the public was urged to use herbs (because they were “ours” and promoted their political agenda) didn’t help prevent any contagious diseases. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to the treatment of infectious disease in Russia was, predictably, politics. The government already provided healthcare free of charge, which was already low quality, but the government also propagated the idea that Western medicine and technology was inherently evil, like the rest of the Western countries. This caused the aforementioned uprising in herbal treatments and “alternative medicine” that served as the main blockade to medical developments in Soviet Russia.
- Many different research centers sprouted across Europe as the drive to improve phage therapy swept the continent. The two institutes that are focused on are the Eliava Institute and the Hirszfeld Institute. First, the Hirszfeld Institute was created by Ludwik Hirszfeld in Wroclaw, Poland. Hirszfeld faced many run-ins with Russian officials during the Soviet era, who tried very hard to blockade his work. However, its birth and success are most directly credited to Stalin’s death. After Germany and Russia exchanged control of land during the war, the region containing Wroclaw eventually was filled with the Polish. However, Hirszfeld and his family faced oppression from anti-Semitic movements in Europe, and had to live in the Warsaw Ghetto. After his family’s escape to Wroclaw, he petitioned the local university to create an institute, probably to counteract the now widely accepted Lysenkoic view on biology (as all other views were not welcomed). This history is very similar to the Eliava Institute, where Eliava was forced to be a martyr for his work. Both men were persecuted by the Russian government for attempting to deviate from the norm and forced into unfavorable situations as a result. Although the outcomes were different, both men showed great resilience and did everything in their power to ensure that their scientific endeavors couldn’t be stopped. Their legacies live on in the form of their institutes.
- Merill made many great discoveries within the realm of phage therapy but faced one major issue: most, if not all, of the phage he would introduce into a system would be immediately filtered out by the spleen and liver, whose job is to filter out toxins in the body. Merill’s group selected the lambda phage, due to Delbruck’s extensive work with the phage, and injected a large volume into the stomachs of mice. After 7 hours, long enough for the spleen and liver to filter out phage, a blood sample was taken and the phage that resisted the filtration were isolated and reintroduced to the mouse’s system. After serial passaging the phage multiple times, 2 strains were isolated that could remain in the bloodstream much longer than previously believed. These phages were called Argo1 and Argo2. For the experiment, mice were injected with a lethal amount of E. coli bacteria. One mouse was left untreated as a control, one mouse was treated with wild-type phage, and the other two were treated with Argo1 and Argo2. The results showed not only that phage treatment worked on animals, but that the isolated phages were able to stay in circulation much longer due to the mice showing a milder illness at a quicker rate than the wild-type treated mouse. This process made sure that the phages that were able to withstand the filtration process in the animal’s body were selected for, and consequently showed more results when experimentally used.
- As time passes, more and more antibiotic-resistant bacteria are developing, meaning that antibiotics will son become less and less effective. Startup companies like GangaGen, mentioned in the book, are seeking to develop treatments and cures that focus on making bacteriophages its primary concern. While antibiotics are currently effective, these companies seek to prepare for when another strategy is needed, especially during a time when antibiotics are believed to be over-prescribed. Companies like GangaGen that possess a wide library of phages will have the resources needed to isolate phages that can potentially wipe out antibiotic-resistant strains of bacterial infections. Experiments like Merill’s need to be performed to prove the effectiveness of a potential phage treatment before it is released to be evaluated by the FDA and other departments or else phage therapy will likely never get it’s feet off of the ground. However, with an advancement in phage therapy, Western medicine will see an opportunity to customize treatments to complex bacterial infections, as well as see an avenue to spread the discoveries around the world to improve healthcare for the rest of the world’s population.
Hey Cooper!
I agree with you on your statement that the USSR’s greatest obstacle in their knowledge and research on infectious diseases was politics. It seems as if politics was the root of their problems regarding their strides in antibiotics. The tension between the USSR and the West after the war ended lead the US and the UK to stop aiding in the USSR’s antibiotic research. If it was not for the USSR’s negative views towards the Western countries and vice versa, I think that the USSR could have gone farther in their research. I also agree with your statement that more experiments need to be made before phage therapy can be considered by the FDA. Once it is, I think that scientists around the world an take the concept and “run with it” in order for phage therapy to fit the needs of their specific use for their specific population. It’ll be interesting to see how different parts of the world use it on the different diseases that are the most problematic for that region!