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I remember hearing about Soviet research into phage therapy, where bacteriophages are cultured to consume particular strains of bacteria. I believe the treatmen
by mmoche 13y ago
I remember hearing about Soviet research into phage therapy, where bacteriophages are cultured to consume particular strains of bacteria. I believe the treatment is only in use in a couple ex-Soviet states. Is this a reasonable avenue once we're essentially dealing with only MRSA-like infections?
- frakkingcylons 13y agoI believe the MRSA-like infections you're thinking of are the Gram-negative bacteria [1] mentioned in the article. Based on the Wikipedia page for phage therapy [2], it should be an effective treatment option where the bacteria have polysacharride layer in the cell envelope, which most antibiotics cannot penetrate. There's more in the treatment section [3], which doesn't mention phage therapy however. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gram-negative_bacteria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gram-negative_bacteria [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gram-negative_bacteria#Medical_treatment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gram-negative_bacteria#Medical_...
- mjn 13y agoThis is a decent, accessibly written survey article as of 2004, from Nature Biotechnology: http://seahorse.louisiana.edu/biol224/Pdfs/From%202010/Thiel2004.pdf http://seahorse.louisiana.edu/biol224/Pdfs/From%202010/Thiel...