Bacteriophage-the deadliest existence on earth
At the end of 2015, Thomas Patterson, a professor at the
University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, and his wife, Stephanie
Strathi, toured Egypt to see the ancient ruins of human civilization. After
returning from climbing the pyramid, Patterson began to feel abdominal pain and
was unable to eat.
Strathi reasoned that he might have pancreatitis.
The doctor soon discovered that the bacteria hiding in
Patterson's internal organs that made him infected was not a guy who was easy
to clean up, but Acinetobacter baumannii.
This is a notorious superbug. Once a person is infected, the
chance of healing is slim.
Because of bacterial infection, when Patterson was returned
to the University of California, San Diego, he had lost his mind.
The
Acinetobacter in his body had developed resistance to all antibiotics that his
body could bear. Bacteria infiltrated his blood, causing him to hallucinate and
develop symptoms of septic shock.
For three months, while her family was desperate for help, a
colleague at the University of California, San Francisco mentioned that one of
her friends had been treated with phage. Although there are huge risks, this is
the only way to see hope.
Stephanie Strathi had no choice but to put her husband on
phage therapy.
48 hours after the intravenous injection of phage, Thomas
Patterson opened his eyes slowly.
Injected into Thomas Patterson is the deadliest organism on
the planet.
Bacteriophage is a virus
Speaking of their looks, if we don't emphasize that this is
actually a creature, you can easily think that they are fictional by humans
just by looking at their appearance.
But the truth is that these guys really exist and are
terrible!
Their head is a tetrahedron, you can imagine them as a dice
with 20 faces and 30 sides, which contains the genetic information of the
virus.
Usually, the head will be followed by a long tail, and there
will be some leg-shaped fibers on it, these guys are very large.
All organisms on the planet, including bacteria, don't add up
as many phage. They can be seen on any living creature.
At this moment, there are hundreds of millions of phages on
your hands, inside your body and on your eyelids!
Phages often do genocide.
And they caused the largest death in the world.
Don’t be nervous, death here doesn’t mean humans.
It means bacterial.
Bacteriophages, as the name suggests, they only kill bacteria
Bacteriophages kill 40% of the bacteria in the ocean every
day.
However, one of the biggest drawbacks of phages is that like
all other viruses, phages need a host to survive and reproduce. They themselves
are basically a shell with genetic information.
And they are specialized. Usually, a bacteriophage only
parasitic a certain kind of bacteria, and some of their close relatives.
Therefore, the phage can be imagined as a cruise missile that
only attacks a certain unlucky family.
When a phage finds its prey, it uses its needle-like tail
wire to penetrate the bacterial epidermis, just like a mosquito injecting its
own saliva before sucking blood. The phage squeezes its genetic information
into the bacteria through its tail.
Then, within minutes, the bacteria would be taken over by the
phage. This unlucky bacterium became a zombie without knowing it, and was
transformed into a factory specializing in the production of new phages by the
genetic information of the phages.
And all the bacteria's material is used by the phage to
process into new phage. The entire bacterium is then filled with newly formed
phage.
Once these phages mature, they release endolysins, a powerful
enzyme that makes holes in the surface of bacteria.
Just like "Alien", the mature phage
"snapped" and broke through the bacteria to release.
And that poor germ zombie will burst and spit out everything
inside, and then die.
A new phage is born
Then they began to fall apart, shouting the charge slogan,
and continued to look for the next unlucky guy.
This goes on and on.
This deadly creature with explosive combat power has been
spotted by the second deadly creature in the world, human beings, in recent
years.
Because we humans messed up something, we decided to join
forces with phages.
And we've started trying to inject millions of phage into our
bodies because of the birth of super bacteria.
Speaking of it, we are human beings.
We all know that in the past, a small wound or drinking water
that you should not drink could kill you.
For example, bacteria are like our human bacteriophages.
These cruel monsters who hunt us cruelly deal with human beings, and have no
emotion.
But then, about a hundred years ago, by chance, we found a
dragon sword in nature. We discovered that fungi make a compound that kills
bacteria. This Dragon Sword is antibiotics!
Overnight, we had a very powerful super weapon, and the germs
were no longer terrible monsters.
For hundreds of years, we finally ended the fear of being
dominated by bacteria, and even forgotten the terribleness of bacteria.
It seems that only the old, the weak and the disabled can be
killed by bacteria.
We are increasingly starting to use antibiotics
unscrupulously and use them at will. We treat antibiotics for less serious
diseases.
In this way, we have been complacent for many years, and we
are less and less looking at monsters and weapons.
But we forgot that bacteria evolve.
Super Bacteria
Some of the bacteria that escaped antibiotic killing have
evolved secretly, and slowly, they have become immune to our weapons.
Finally one day, they evolved into something called
"super bacteria", they are bacteria that are immune to all our
weapons!
And this ability is spreading globally! We humans have
finally created a monster for ourselves!
It is estimated that by 2050, there may be more deaths due to
super bacteria than cancer. Those who have a small wound or a small cough will
make you or your loved one. The day of death may return.
Now, 23,000 people die of drug-resistant bacteria every year
in the United States alone.
Humans finally remember the fear of being dominated by
bacteria!
But now humans have seen the dawn again, we have once again
found a weapon that can save us, this time an army!
By injecting them into the body to treat infections, these
tiny viral robotic phages can help us kill those super bacteria.
Wait.....
Injecting so much virus into the body? Isn't this fatal?
Don't worry, it's okay!
Bacteriophages are a very, very specialized bacterial killer.
In fact, we are completely immune to them!
We encounter hundreds of millions of bacteriophages every
day, but we just politely ignore each other and go the other way.
In contrast, antibiotics are like carpet bombing. Those
beneficial bacteria that live in our stomachs are also killed, while phages are
like missiles, only killing those bacteria that should be killed.
If we use phage to deal with bacteria, will they evolve to be immune to phage?
Don't worry about it, because phages will evolve too!
We need to know that the arms race between bacteria and
phages has been going on for hundreds of millions of years. During this period,
phages will continue to upgrade their hunting skills. Even if bacteria become
immune to phages, we still have hope to win.
Because if the bacteria want to be immune to certain types of
phage, they must reduce their immunity to antibiotics. By pinching on both
sides of the phage and antibiotics, the bacteria can metamorphose and become
resistant again. In the end, they will have to die in the end!
Unfortunately, this treatment is still experimental, and
pharmaceutical companies are not very willing to invest in this treatment
without any official approval.
However, things are finally turning for the better. In 2016,
with Thomas Patterson's miraculous recovery, this antibacterial treatment that
seems to have been rejected and forgotten has returned to people's vision, and
the US government has also quickly invested. San Diego conducts corresponding
clinical trials of phage antibacterial.
The phage finally got more and more attention.
Author's Bio
 |
| Dr. Shawna Reason |
Education: MBBS, MD
Occupation: Medical Doctor / Virologist
Specialization: Medical Science, Micro Biology / Virology, Natural Treatment
Experience: 15 Years as a Medical Practitioner
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