Viruses of Two Faces

Often times, a negative connotation has been following around viruses, but scientists have taken a leap to turn the surge of super-bugs to viruses that can kill bacteria.

The world has awakened to the most potent, and deadly species on Earth. Infectious disease specialists have been warning about this for decades as the deadly threat comes from many novel diseases that have not been expected to have come. The threat comes not from the novel viruses, such as what causes COVID-19, jumping from animals to humans.

The Benefits

“You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.” -Paul Coelho

Treatment resistant bacteria such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and other multi-drug resistant Acinetobacter baumannii, dubbed "Iraqibacter" has been created at the hands of human development.

World Health Organization

The world health organization predicts that the deaths from these superbugs will keep on rising, from 700,000 a year to nearly 10 million by 2050.

Splendid Irony

“But in a splendid irony, it may turn out that viruses, so often seen as nemeses, could be our saviors in fighting a host of killer infections” -Claudia Wallis

Researchers have been turning their attention to the bacteriophages which can be identified literally as the bacteria eaters. The viruses in the class are believed to be the oldest and the most numerous organisms on Earth. Like guided missiles these bacteriophages have evolved to be capable of being able to destroy a specific type of a bacteria. Phage therapy have also been used in eastern Europe for the battling of infections, but after the modern antibiotics arrived in the century, they were largely ignored. Resistance issues began to be under more attention as the issue was getting worse by the minute. With modern technology, virologists precisely match the right phages to a specific strain of the super bug.

Phage Therapy

As of now, phage therapy remains very experimental. In most cases, this involves making custom cocktails of several phages shown to be active in the in vitro against an individual patient's bug. Many researchers are envisioning to create a library with tens of thousands of phages, already purified and characterized for sequencing. Lysin will also work in synergy with the standard antibiotics, which will pierce the walls of superbugs, enable the drugs to do the job. Lysins also clear up the biofilms, which are slimy layers of bacteria, by the carbohydrate gunks. Lysins will also kill targets without collateral damage to the microbiome.