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> This article yet again reports on the lack of awareness about bacteriophages in the medical community. A shortlist of answers: - Bacteriophages are evolutio

> This article yet again reports on the lack of awareness about bacteriophages in the medical community. A shortlist of answers: - Bacteriophages are evolutionarily close to viruses. Their proteins will resemble viral proteins, so the body will most likely initiate an immune response against it. - Bacteriophages are really quite specific in what they'll infect. This makes them much less useful as an antibacterial. You'd spend a lot of time and money on making one that would infect your mrsa strain, and mrsa would probably just start the arms race, leaving you back at the start. - Bacteriophages are (evolutionarily close to) viruses, and thus also have the immense mutation rate of those. Even if you were to make one that had all the properties you wanted, it'd probably get rid of most of them because they are evolutionarily disadvantages. - Probably a few other fairly good reasons which my coffee-deprived brain can't think off right at this moment.

armada651 7y ago
> You'd spend a lot of time and money on making one that would infect your mrsa strain, and mrsa would probably just start the arms race, leaving you back at the start. Actually developing resistance against bacteriophages requires such invasive changes that most bacteria that develop it lose resistance against anti-biotics. That is why an anti-biotic therapy is often used together with a phage therapy.
- AllegedAlec 7y ago
  > Actually developing resistance against bacteriophages requires such invasive changes that most bacteria that develop it lose resistance against anti-biotics It requires some huge changes, sure. However, MRSA exists because Staph was able to adapt to be resistant to multiple antibiotics at the same time. There is no reason to assume that it could not adapt to become resistant to the phage used as well as some of the most used antibiotics.
  - esyir 7y ago
    You also get the evolutionary war between the virus and the bacteria. That should help out.
ddebernardy 7y ago
Those are all potentially valid reasons to not pay much attention to it as a solution for multi-resistant bacteria. However, none of them explain why medical professionals are not even aware that bacteriophages are a thing, in contrast with laypeople like the parent poster (or myself, and presumably many more on HN since there have been a few articles on this topic over the years).
- robbiep 7y ago
  The medical profession is aware, they just aren’t scaled up for use in any meaningful sense - essentially to be able to meaningfully fight bacterial infections with phases a hospital or clinic would need to type the bacteria and screen it against potentially hundreds or more phages (even if they are already specific to the bacteria) to find the ones that are going to be most effective. So, there are time constraints, delivery mechanisms and also logistics to overcome. A challenge for a startup?
- AllegedAlec 7y ago
  > why medical professionals are not even aware that bacteriophages are a thing Sounds questionable to me that this is even the cause, to be honest. However, assuming this is true, the main reason I could think for why would be the case if this: medicine is an extremely specialised field. Not only do you focus solely on the human body, but not even the body as a whole, but on what can go wrong with it. The only knowledge a medical professional needs about bacteria, viruses and other pathogens is what they require for them to be diagnozed, what kind of illnesses they convey and how they can be gotten rid of. And not even this is accurate, because within the field of medicine there's even further specialisation into even smaller sub-fields. That there are also viruses which infect bacteria is of no (direct) importance on the medical field. In fact, it'd frankly be a waste of time for them during their study to learn about phages in any detail. The basic degree alone is already very long and full to the point of bursting. It'd be similar to expecting welders to understand the minutea of all states of matter, because TIG welding uses plasma to melt metal.

armada651 7y ago

> You'd spend a lot of time and money on making one that would infect your mrsa strain, and mrsa would probably just start the arms race, leaving you back at the start. Actually developing resistance against bacteriophages requires such invasive changes that most bacteria that develop it lose resistance against anti-biotics. That is why an anti-biotic therapy is often used together with a phage therapy.

AllegedAlec 7y ago
> Actually developing resistance against bacteriophages requires such invasive changes that most bacteria that develop it lose resistance against anti-biotics It requires some huge changes, sure. However, MRSA exists because Staph was able to adapt to be resistant to multiple antibiotics at the same time. There is no reason to assume that it could not adapt to become resistant to the phage used as well as some of the most used antibiotics.
- esyir 7y ago
  You also get the evolutionary war between the virus and the bacteria. That should help out.

ddebernardy 7y ago

Those are all potentially valid reasons to not pay much attention to it as a solution for multi-resistant bacteria. However, none of them explain why medical professionals are not even aware that bacteriophages are a thing, in contrast with laypeople like the parent poster (or myself, and presumably many more on HN since there have been a few articles on this topic over the years).

robbiep 7y ago
The medical profession is aware, they just aren’t scaled up for use in any meaningful sense - essentially to be able to meaningfully fight bacterial infections with phases a hospital or clinic would need to type the bacteria and screen it against potentially hundreds or more phages (even if they are already specific to the bacteria) to find the ones that are going to be most effective. So, there are time constraints, delivery mechanisms and also logistics to overcome. A challenge for a startup?
AllegedAlec 7y ago
> why medical professionals are not even aware that bacteriophages are a thing Sounds questionable to me that this is even the cause, to be honest. However, assuming this is true, the main reason I could think for why would be the case if this: medicine is an extremely specialised field. Not only do you focus solely on the human body, but not even the body as a whole, but on what can go wrong with it. The only knowledge a medical professional needs about bacteria, viruses and other pathogens is what they require for them to be diagnozed, what kind of illnesses they convey and how they can be gotten rid of. And not even this is accurate, because within the field of medicine there's even further specialisation into even smaller sub-fields. That there are also viruses which infect bacteria is of no (direct) importance on the medical field. In fact, it'd frankly be a waste of time for them during their study to learn about phages in any detail. The basic degree alone is already very long and full to the point of bursting. It'd be similar to expecting welders to understand the minutea of all states of matter, because TIG welding uses plasma to melt metal.