Friday, April 3, 2009

Phage


The Next Phage??????
How to heal an infection that defies antibiotics? Doctors in Eastern Europe have used lab-grown viruses to safely cure millions of wounds.
Phages are estimated to be the most widely distributed and diverse entities in the biosphere. Phages are ubiquitous and can be found in all reservoirs populated by bacterial hosts, such as soil or the intestines of animals. One of the densest natural sources for phages and other viruses is sea water, where up to 9×108 virions per milliliter have been found in microbial mats at the surface, and up to 70% of marine bacteria may be infected by phages.
They have been used for over 60 years as an alternative to antibiotics in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. They are seen as a possible therapy against multi drug resistant strains of many bacteria
Read the article, it's amazing. Let's hope it becomes the new "miracle drug" in the US. Though it might make the drug companies a little worried.

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