Scientists Are Using a New Weapon to Fight Drug-Resistant Bacteria —Viruses

A new medical research center in San Diego is embracing an innovative way to treat antibiotic resistant infections called bacteriophage therapy—phage therapy for short—which uses viruses as weapons against hard-to-treat infections. Antibiotic-resistant infections are part of a growing global health problem. Each year in the United States, at least two million people contract drug-resistant infections, and 23,000 die from those illnesses. Bacteria naturally grow resistant to the drugs used to treat them, and for people with especially tough infections that aren’t responding to the usual medications, the options are limited. On Thursday, the University of California San Diego School of Medicine announced that it is collaborating with national research groups and private companies to create the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics (IPATH). The first of its kind in North America, the center will conduct clinical trials of phage therapy for people living with severe drug-resistant infections. MORE: Superbugs Are Nearly Impossible to Fight. This Last-Resort Medical Treatment Offers Hope Phages are ubiquitous viruses—there are more of them than any other organism in the world—that fight bacteria. They do this by injecting their DNA into bacteria cells, where they rapidly replicate and cause bacteria to burst and die. For the most part, each phage strain attacks a specific kind of bacteria, so if scientists harness phages in the rig...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthytime medicine Source Type: news