March
17
Forgotten Cure 2
- In Russia, phage therapy was used readily rather than antibiotics since it was cheaper to use. The USSR control of the health system caused doctors to seek other methods of treatment. Doctors would look at phage therapy for answers since it was cheaper, and the USSR used its money for weapons for the Cold War rather than medicine for its people and soldiers. Since antibiotics were used more in the western world, Russia placed a negative conation towards antibiotics since they were at “war” with western countries powerhouses. This led Russia to focus on treating diseases via phage therapy and the forgotten cure was born in the west.
- After the death of Hirszfeld’s daughter, he founded Hirrszfeld Institute after many battles with the Soviet Union. The institute had gone through many events with the Soviet Union, and later Hirszfeld would ultimately give the institute to Milgrom. The institute focuses on phage typing. Other institutes such as Eliava institute and Phage therapy center came to do the same thing and helped in different ways to help cure diseases. Eliava institutes research bacteriophages and their potential use as phage therapy to cure diseases, and the Phage therapy center treat the patients.
- Merril and his team worked on breeding a phage that could evade the liver and spleen. The team injected phage active against a specific strain of coli into stomachs of mice. They chose a specific phage, called lambda since it was a phage that was studied thoroughly by Delbruck. After seven hours of injection, the team took blood samples from animals, isolated the phages, and serial passaged the phage eight times. The survival rate of these new phages was a thousand times higher than phage lambda, and the team called the phages Argo1 and Argo 2. The team then had to see if the Argo1 and Argo2 could actually save mice infected with E. coli. They took four mice, and all injected with a lethal dose of bacteria. Three of the mice were treated with phage and the last one was used as the control of the experiment. The results showed that untreated mice died in two days, those treated with phage survived, and Argo1 and Argo2 had a milder illness compared to the non-passaged strain of lambda.
- 1 shows the development and partial characterization of long-circulating bacteriophage. Bacteriophages the could avoid entrapment by the RES were developed by selecting phage strains that could remain in the circulatory system of mice for progressively longer periods. The serial-passage experiment’s goal was to increase the incidence of mutation in phage lambda, so as to enhance the probability that one or more of the phages offspring would have properties that permit evasion of the RES. Both Argo 1 and Argo 2 displayed a similar enhanced capacity to avoid RES entrapment. Fig. 2 shows the comparison of long-circulation Argo phage versus wild-type phage as antibacterial agents in an animal model. All the mice were scored based if they showed signs of illness. Mice treated with W60 showed signs of severe illness before recovering, and both Argo1/Argo2 showed signs of minor signs of illness. Mice that were treated with phage all survived. Fig. 3 shows the ability of the phage to influence bacterial infections is dose-dependent. Animals showed signs of illness with a minimum dose of phage and increases in phage doses showed lower signs of illness. Fig. 4 shows the characterization of Argo 1 and Argo 2. The images compare the lambda phage capsid E protein versus the W60 capsid E protein and show an alkaline shift in the Argo 1 E protein capsid.
- Many companies discussed inThe Forgotten Cure research on how phage therapy is the alternative to antibiotics. Many companies were discussed in inThe Forgotten Cure such as Phage Therapy, Phage Biotics, GangaGen, Exponential Biotherapies. GangaGen is a company where it has done research to show that phage therapy is the alternative to antibiotics. Since phage therapy was the forgotten cure in the western world, many experiments are needed to be done in order to spread phage therapy in the U.S. Phage therapy must be approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). New methods and therapies would have to go through a series of tests set by the FDA, such as the therapy need to be tested on animals before tested on humans. These advancements will help cure the forgotten cure. Companies are looking to find which treatment via phage therapy is the best to cure many diseases. Companies like the Exponential Biotherapies are working towards phage cocktails, to cure acute kidney injury and irradiation damage from cancer therapies.
Hey Michael, it’s interesting how the different political atmospheres like the USSR and the western countries guided the course of medical treatments, the revival of phage therapy couldn’t be done without the contributions of institutions such as the Eliava Institute even though it doesn’t have the funding or the resources it used to have.
I agree that phage therapy treatments have to go through a series of tests by the FDA as you mentioned, rigorous and careful animal tests and human trials must be performed before any form of phage therapy be made available to the general public.