Inside a third-floor office a few blocks from the Hudson River in Yonkers, N.Y., a small biotechnology company called ContraFect prepares to test a remarkable new way to kill bacteria in humans. Antibiotics, after many years of use and overuse, have lost their edge against rapidly evolving bacteria, with everything from staph infections to tuberculosis becoming more devastating, deadly and difficult to treat. Whereas traditional antibiotics have mostly been derived from chemicals produced by soil bacteria and fungi, ContraFect has found an alternative in bacteriophages: viruses that infect bacteria and hijack their internal machinery. In nature, phages produce enzymes called lysins, causing the bacteria fall to pieces and new phages to tumble out by the hundreds. ContraFect believes it can harness these lysins to treat bacterial infections in humans.

The first trials for patient safety are expected to start this year. It is a moment that Vincent Fischetti, a 71-year-old microbiologist at the Rockefeller University, has been approaching for decades. A child of working-class parents on Long Island, he once thought he would be a dentist before getting hooked on microbiology as an undergraduate. Studying for his master's degree by night and paying his bills as a technician on a scarlet fever project by day, he became fascinated by phages. After years of work, he demonstrated, in 2001, that lysins could help mice fight strep throat infection. The military also sees potential in lysins, which could be administered before surgery to prevent infection or spread over surfaces to clean an area contaminated by an anthrax attack.

This article was originally published with the title Phage Factor.

5 Comments

1. 1. Mythusmage 11:09 PM 8/1/12

   I can see the headline a century from now, "Could Antibiotics Replace Overused Bacteria-Fighting Viruses?"

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2. 2. Richieo 09:38 AM 8/7/12

   Bacteriophage Is this something new?
   
   They have been used for over 90 years as an alternative to antibiotics in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as well as in France.
   They are seen as a possible therapy against multi-drug-resistant strains of many bacteria. (from Wiki)
   
   Are we playing catch-up again?
   

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3. 3. whiterabbit1990 07:50 AM 8/8/12

   Didn't they watch 'I am Legend'? :(

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4. 4. jimfromcanada in reply to Richieo 02:07 AM 8/14/12

   I agree the Russians have been far ahead of the west in this technology. In fact the collapse of the Soviet Union caused the closing down of support for this technology. It was then taken up by western pharmaceuticals and here is the result we see. It would be nice to see some credit given to the Russian scientists who have developed this technology, even if their government abandoned them and it.

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5. 5. Acoyauh2 06:53 PM 9/3/12

   Interesting...
   These guys are experimenting not with the actual phages, but with the protein phages use to lyse the bacteria.
   Russian usage involves identifying the right phage and unleashing the actual virus against the infecting bugs. Odds are, using phages means keeping up with the bugs, since phages would necessarily evolve with their prey.
   Misuse/overuse of the phage protein(s) alone means sooner or later the bugs will be resilient to them.
   
   whiterabbit1990: While injecting live viruses as medicine does bring to mind 'I am Legend' and its likes, phages are so specialized they'll hardly switch species, let alone switch from bacteria to - ahem - people as prey. You're not lost, though. Once this therapy is developed and starts paying off, we'll start playing with cancer-eating phages (the concept has been thrown about plenty already) and THEN we should worry. A virus can easily switch from sick to healthy cells as prey, and then not even Mila Jojovich will be able to save our 'hinds
   So there is still hope for a Zombie Apocalypse of some sort; just give virologists enough time =)
   

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