Stalin’s army infection treatment helping fight against MRSA
Further to my article on MRSA’s ability to rapidly mutate as a means of increasing resistance to antibiotics, there’s an article on the BBC website about using Stalin’s preferred method of fighting gangrene and infection in his troops - in the fight to treat MRSA infections. All his army took a pack of bacteriophages with them in their kit bags.
Bacteriophages are viruses that eat bacteria. They enter a body, latch onto a bacteria, inject DNA into the bacteria making the bacteria produce more bacteriophages. In the process the bacteria dies and the bacteriophages then self destruct. Perfect!
In the West bacteriophages fell out of favour with the introduction of antibiotics, however they are still widely used in parts of Russia as a means of treating deep rooted infections such as gangrene and strep throat.
There are a couple of companies working on developing treatments for infection control using bacteriophages. There are no known side effects of bacteriophages so watch this space!
For the full article go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6943779.stm
Penny
Fascinating stuff those bacteriophages! You are now tagged for the b5media Health & Science Channel “meme” – Have fun!
The reason that we have seemingly evolved so differently from primates is because in Sumerian scripture (The oldest known versions of the stories of the bible) the Sumerians talked of the annunaki, the “gods” that came to earth and gave us modern civilization. They first came to earth about half a million years ago according to the writings which are basically ignored by the torah of the current bible which only goes by the hebrew, greek, aramaic and other scriptures which are not quite as old as the sumarian scriptures. In this 5000 year old account of the creation, the cuneiform hyroglyphic text deciphers to account for the creation, the flood, the giants that are spoken of in the bible….on and on…any ways long story short, the anunaki created mankind by altering the genetics of the existing primates and thats why we are over 99% of the same genes as a monkey, yet they still cant say without a shadow of a doubt they have found the missing link….because they have found no pre human predecessor that contains the 256 “extra” genes that we have…that exist in no other organism except for a known bacteria….meaning that we are a cross of a monkey and a genetic bacteria. How was the genes fused together to make modern man…??? Thats right….the anunaki!
Fascinating Micah!
I’m even more intrigued as to how life started in the first place. Any thoughts anyone?
Penny
That is very cool. I used to use bacteriphages in my research way back when when I needed to make single stranded DNA. And most researchers have used T4 ligase or T7 polymerase at some point in their life. What a wonderful additional use for bacteriophages. I’ll be curious to see the ways bacteria come up with to beat the bacteriphages.
Hi Barry
One thing that would be useful to check out is where doctors are using bacteriophages to treat infections, has any resistance been shown by the bacteria.
Anyone know the answer?
Penny
I found this at Wikipedia (not always my reference of choice). I hadn’t really thought it through but phages will mutate with the bacteria, sort of an antibiotic that can change as the bacteria change.
The evolution of bacterial strains through natural selection that are resistant to antibiotics e.g.MRSA has recently led Western scientists to re-evaluate phages as viable alternatives to antibiotics. Unlike antibiotics, phages adapt naturally and very quickly along with the bacteria, as they have done for millions of years, so a sustained resistance is unlikely. Unlike pharmaceuticals, when an effective phage is found it will seek out the bacteria and continue to replicate and kill bacteria of that type until they are all gone.
Thanks Barry, I’m sure we will both watch this bacteriophage space with increasing interest!