Pitting one germ against another may sound radical, but it’s a sign of a growing global crisis, reports the Voice of America (VOA). Superbugs are killing more and more people as many of the antibiotics commonly used to treat them can no longer keep up the fight. And while some people are more at risk — those getting surgery, or cancer chemotherapy, for example — “antibiotic resistance is a problem essentially for everyone,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious diseases chief at the National Institutes of Health told VOA. “Over the next several years, all indicators seem to point to the fact that this is going to get worse and worse.”
This has scientists scrambling to find another solution and the search has led them to some unique discoveries and unconventional places.
One possible treatment tricks bacteria out of a nutrient they need to survive, others jumpstart the germ-fighting immune system. There also exists viruses that were discovered 100 years ago called bacteriophages but are rarely used to treat infections today now that easier-to-use antibiotics are available. Each phage variety targets a different bacterial strain. Originally used to treat dysentery in the early 20th century, today Yale biologist Benjamin Chan travels the globe searching for phages in ditches, ponds, and sewage treatment plants for types that attack a variety of human infections.
“The best places are often really dirty places, because we’re dirty animals,” he told VOA.
Chan saw hope for a patient with treatment resistant cystic fibrosis inside a lab dish covered in brownish bacterial goo. He grew a sample of the patient’s bacteria from her phlegm, dripped several pseudomonas-targeting phages into the germy dish and watched as clear circles began appearing, a sign that the viruses were consuming the bugs around them.
For two small studies, researchers recruited cystic fibrosis patients who had antibiotic-resistant pseudomonas in their lungs but weren’t openly sick. The patients received a five-day infusion of a gallium-based drug. Over the next few weeks, their lung function improved, enough that next-step studies are being planned.
Researchers also hope one day doctors might be able to vaccinate people weeks before planned surgical procedures, such as a knee replacement, to protect against catching hospital-acquired infections, such as staph. VOA reports that 16 experimental vaccines are in development to target various infections, according to a recent presentation to a presidential advisory council on resistant germs.
Lab-engineered “monoclonal antibodies” designed to home in on specific bugs also look promising and are now being administered experimentally to ventilator patients who have bacteria building up that could trigger pneumonia.
Bacteria evolve to escape phages just like they escape antibiotics, but they generally make trade-offs to do so — such as losing some of their antibiotic resistance, Yale evolutionary biologist Paul Turner told VOA. Phages work very differently than traditional antibiotics. Like a parasite, the virus infiltrates bacterial cells and uses them to copy itself, killing the bug as those copies pop out and search for more bacteria. Once the infection’s gone, the virus dies out. Because each phage only recognizes certain bacteria, it shouldn’t kill off “good bugs” in the digestive tract like antibiotics do.
