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Phage therapy is often effective and very promising, but it's specific to each infection, labor intensive, and basically impossible to scale up or patent to mas
by notadoc 10y ago
Phage therapy is often effective and very promising, but it's specific to each infection, labor intensive, and basically impossible to scale up or patent to mass produce like an antibiotic is (perhaps why it hasn't caught on).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy
Most of the ongoing active use and research is in Poland
https://www.iitd.pan.wroc.pl/en/OTF/ https://www.iitd.pan.wroc.pl/en/OTF/
- ddingus 10y agoIt can scale in distributed fashion. The labor is fine. People working to save people is a completely valid labor, important, meaningful, possible. It's not like we don't have any free human time. Lots of people need work. Packaging this into a repeatable, portable process seems worthwhile. The search for better super antibiotics can continue. If we get lucky, great. I read there is a group in Poland who will match a phage to an infection in a few days. They need a sample. Scale that. The world needs it.
- leereeves 10y ago> basically impossible to scale up or patent to mass produce like an antibiotic is (perhaps why it hasn't caught on). I think they mean that the profit motive of pharma giants is an important part of promoting new treatments.
- DonaldFisk 10y agoThere wouldn't any profit for pharma giants. You can't patent bacteriophage, they're the commonest life form on Earth (if you consider viruses to be a life form), they're extracted from unwanted waste (raw sewage) and they reproduce themselves in bacterial cultures. This is why their use continued in the Soviet Union when they fell out of favour in the West. Profits don't matter under communism.
- BurningFrog 10y agoThe other angle is that regulations (FDA etc) probably make it impossible to legally offer any treatment that doesn't have at least $1B behind it.
- ddingus 10y agoOf course they do, and it's just fine. I'm saying there is sustainable, practical work there. Money to be made. Probably a solid living for lots of people. If I were in a different place, I would consider it.
- notadoc 10y agoIt requires very specific skilled labor, but it is a great idea if you can find a way to scale it. There is certainly the demand. If you have the interest and passion, then come up with a reasonable business plan, find a partner who knows biology/chemistry/medicine very well, and apply to YCombinator? They have the interest. https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#biotech https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#biotech https://www.ycombinator.com/biotech/ https://www.ycombinator.com/biotech/ https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#healthcare https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#healthcare https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#pharmaceuticals https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#pharmaceuticals
- ddingus 9y ago:D
- ShannonAlther 10y agoPhage therapy is also relatively common in Russia. http://www.nature.com/news/phage-therapy-gets-revitalized-1.15348 http://www.nature.com/news/phage-therapy-gets-revitalized-1....
- DonaldFisk 10y agoTherapeutic bacteriophages were mass-produced in Tbilisi, Georgia, before the collapse of the Soviet Union: http://thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)66759-1/fulltext http://thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(0...