Due to global antibiotic resistance problems, many scientists become interested in using bacteriophage to fight this problem.

1. Merhan Mohammed Galal
Microbiology specialist at DRC

2.  Antibiotic resistance
 Bacteriophage
 Phage therapy
 Bacteriophages vs Antibiotics
 Limitation and challenges

3. The ability of bacteria and other microorganisms to r
esist the effects of an antibiotic to which they were o
nce sensitive.

4. What causes antibiotic resistance?
using antibiotics when they are not needed
not taking antibiotics at the doses and times that
a doctor prescribes — this allows time for the bact
eria in your system to become resistant

11.  viruses that only infect bacteria and attack only a singl
e bacterial strains. This specificity together with the killin
g capacity makes them the natural enemies of bacteria.

16. French Canadian microbiologist Felix d’Herelle, first
observed in 1910 the bacteriophage phenomenon
In 1917 he began testing his phages in human patients adm
inistration them to a 12 year old boy with severe dysenter
y resulting in complete recovery.

18.  Eli Lilly began to commercialize phage therapy in the US in
the 1940’s. However, when antibiotics were produced in the
1950’s they were widely marketed and became the
cornerstone of the pharmaceutical companies business. This
put an end to research and development of phage therapy in
the US and much of Europe.
 The Soviet Union continued to use phage therapy and
conducted many successful trials but there publications were
mainly in Russian or Georgian languages and were
unavailable internationally until recent years. The thorough
research done over the last 80 years does indicate an 80-95%
success rate with very minimal side effects.

19. Phage therapy:
 Using phages or their products as bioagents for the t
reatment or prophylaxis of bacterial
infectious disease.
 Phage therapy has many potential applications in hu
man medicine as well as dentistry,vetrinary science
and agriculture.

20.  In human and animal intestine.
 In running water
 In the soil
 Effluent outlets
 Sewage from corpses

21. Very specific Target normal flora and pathogens
Abundant in environment Synthetic or semisynthetic
no side effects have been
reported
Have sever side effects like allergies
and secondary infection
Replicate at the site of
infection
Travel throughout the body and don’t
concentrate at the site of infection
Cheap to produce Antibiotic development may take
several years, may cost millions of
dollars

22. Good alternative for patients alle
rgic to antibodies
If patient is allergic to antibiotic, tre
atment is very difficult
Their action is bactericidal Some are bacteriostatic

23.  Immunogenicity: in prolonged treatments has been
observed a development of antibodies against pha
ges.
 Contamination of therapeutic phage preparations with e
ndotoxin from bacterial debris.
 Because of the high specificity of phages, the disea
se causing bacterium has to be identified before the
administration of phage therapy.
 Restriction: bacteria protect themselves by chop
ping up any foreign DNA by nuclease enzyme th
at strict the infection of phages.

24.  Rapid clearance of phage by spleen.
 This therapy cannot be used for intracellular bact
eria as the host is not available for interaction
 Proper storage of phages can be difficult. Freezing, high
temperature or long storage with cooling may result in p
hage degradation.
 the public’s negative view of viruses. There will take some
education to cross the “psychological barrier” that people
have so they will not be worried about using these live viruses
as a healthful tool. We can look to Phages as the equivalent
of probiotics and perhaps even title them as “proviriotics.”

25.  Phage cocktails.
 Drug delivery technologies can enhance systemic
phage delivery and reduce phage inactivation
and clearance.
 Bacteria can be engineered to target intracellular
defense pathogens.
 Phages prepared from bacteria would need to be
purified to diminish contamination of phage
preparations with endotoxin and exotoxin .

26.  Living phages
 Non replicating genetically modified phages
 Phage lysin
 Protein antibiotics

27.  The Food and Drug Administration approved
the use of bacteriophage for use in food
safety in 2006. Specifically to
remove Listeria monocytogenes bacteria
from cheese production. The following year
the use of bacteriophage was approved for
use on ALL food products.

29. Leg ulcer before phage therapyAfter therapy