Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development today, according to the World Health Organization (1). Antibiotic resistance occurs when natural selection favors bacteria that contain resistant mutations that are able to combat the very drugs created to kill them. It can impact anybody, and the problem has escalated to the point that scientists and other researchers have trouble keeping up. (2) It is the cause of an estimated 700,000 deaths each year globally, and the death toll may reach 10 million by 2050. (3)
A solution to antibiotic resistance may not be as far away as we think. Phage therapy involves the use of naturally-occuring bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) for the treatment of bacterial infections. (4) Phages are parasites of bacterias using them as a host for survival and reproduction. They inject genetic material into a host cell and use the cell’s mechanisms to replicate, eventually causing the cell to burst. In order to treat an infection, different phages proven to be effective towards combating the target pathogen are often put into a “phage cocktail.” (3)
There have been many proven advantages to phages. They are immune to the effects of antibiotic resistance and specific to their target pathogen; they also leave beneficial bacteria alone. In addition, phage are very numerous, diverse, easily isolated, and readily characterized. (6) This makes them a very viable solution to the global health crisis we face today.
Although they were discovered in 1915, phages were largely ignored in medicine since the mass production of antibiotics began in the 1920s. (5) In general, the scientific community has had a poor understanding of the functioning and biological nature of phages. Even today, phages receive a lot of criticism concerning their efficacy in humans due to lack of analysis and clinical testing. As we gather more information and conduct more tests, the possibility of phage therapy becoming widely used is much greater. Specifically, there must be significantly more reporting on the pharmacokinetics of therapeutic phage preparations and studies must be conducted under rigorous clinical trial standards in order to become endorsed by the scientific and medical community for therapeutic use. (4)
The future of phage therapy still requires a lot more work, but the outlook is strong. As antibiotic resistance continues to threaten the health of the entire world, the field of phage therapy will rise to more and more importance, warranting further research, funding and development of a regulatory model.
References:
- Antibiotic resistance. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antibiotic-resistance
- About Antibiotic Resistance. (2020, March 13). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/about.html
- Lin, D. M., Koskella, B., & Lin, H. C. (2017). Phage therapy: An alternative to antibiotics in the age of multi-drug resistance. World Journal of Gastrointestinal Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 8(3), 162. doi:10.4292/wjgpt.v8.i3.162
- Sulakvelidze, A., Alavidze, Z., & Morris, J. G. (2001). Bacteriophage Therapy. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, 45(3), 649-659. doi:10.1128/aac.45.3.649-659.2001
- Anomaly, J. (2020). The Future of Phage: Ethical Challenges of Using Phage Therapy to Treat Bacterial Infections. Public Health Ethics. doi:10.1093/phe/phaa003
- Chan, Benjamin K, et al. “Phage Cocktails and the Future of Phage Therapy.” Future Microbiology, vol. 8, no. 6, 2013, pp. 769–783., doi:10.2217/fmb.13.47.