The Virtuous Side of Viruses https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-virtuous-side-of-viruses/
Smmry's TL;DR <https://smmry.com/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-virtuous-side-of-viruses/#&SM_LENGTH=7>: > Phage therapy has long been used in eastern Europe to battle infections, but > after modern antibiotics arrived in the 1940s, it was largely ignored. > > With modern techniques, virologists can precisely match just the right phages > to a specific strain of superbug-with sometimes astonishing results. > > Tom Patterson, for example, was resurrected from an overwhelming Iraqibacter > infection after his wife, Steffanie Strathdee, an infectious disease > epidemiologist, scoured the world for phages that might save him. > > Strathdee has since co-founded U.C.S.D.'s Center for Innovative Phage > Applications and Therapeutics. > > In Patterson's case, nine different phages were used in various cocktails > injected into his bloodstream multiple times a day over 18 weeks. > > After multiplying inside a bacterium, phages use lysins to break through the > cell wall of their host, instantly killing it. > > A purified lysin made from a phage gene isolated in Fischetti's lab was > tested in a phase 2 trial with 116 patients suffering from staph infections > of the blood or heart, including 43 with MRSA strains. -- glen ep ropella 971-599-3737 - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
