Underseer
Contributor
For those who can't watch the video:
- Bacetriophages are complex viruses with an injector mechanism that only prey on bacteria. In fact bacteriophages generally prey on specific bacteria and closely related bacteria.
- Humans have overused antibiotics, and so now we are having more and more trouble with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Eventually, things could go back to the way things were before the discovery of antibiotics when getting a simple cut at the wrong place or time could be deadly.
- Bacteriophages get around this because if the bacteria evolve resistance, the bacteriophage can also evolve. So bacteriophages are kind of like microbiotic smartweapons that target specific bacteria and can evolve countermeasures to evolved resistance.
- Antibiotics kill indiscriminately, including bacteria we might want to keep around, but bacteriophages target specific bacteria.
- A recent discovery is that when bacteria evolve resistance to a bacteriophage, they generally lose resistance to antibiotics. So there is a new treatment that involves injecting a bacteriophage along with antibiotics that the bacteria is currently resistant to. If the bacteria evolves resistance to one, it becomes vulnerable to the other. Poof.
The bacteriophage treatments are still in the experimental stage, but are promising. One downside is that doctors are now going to have to know precisely which species of bacteria is causing the problem before they can prescribe a bacteriophage treatment. I imagine that's going to complicate things.
