The world is now at war with microorganisms that cannot be seen with the naked eye, and if left unchecked, it could kill millions of people in the coming years. And this is not about the newest coronavirus, to which all attention is now focused, but about bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.
The fact is that more than 700 people died from bacterial infections in the world last year alone. If nothing is done, that number could rise to 000 million a year by 10, according to a UN report. The problem lies in the misuse of antibiotics by doctors, people, and in animal husbandry and agriculture. People use too many drugs to kill the bad bacteria that have adapted.
And this is where fledgling biotech company Felix, from Y Combinator's latest venture fund investment series, comes into the picture: it thinks it can come up with a new approach to preventing the spread of bacterial infections... with viruses.
Now, during the global crisis caused by the coronavirus, it seems strange to look at the virus in a good light, but as co-founder Robert McBride explains, Felix's key technology allows it to target its virus to specific areas of the bacteria. This not only kills harmful bacteria, but can also stop their ability to develop and become resistant.
But the idea of using a virus to kill bacteria is not new. Bacteriophages (phages), or viruses that can "infect" bacteria, were first discovered by an English researcher in 1915, and commercial phage therapy began in the US in the 1940s with Eli Lilly & Co. But around the same time, much simpler and more effective antibiotics appeared, and Western scientists seem to have abandoned the idea for a long time.
Mr. McBride is convinced that his company can make phage therapy an effective medical tool. Felix has already tested their solution with an initial group of 10 people to demonstrate how this approach works.
“We can develop therapies in less time and for less money, and we already know that our therapy can work in humans,” said Robert McBride. "We argue that our approach, which makes bacteria susceptible to traditional antibiotics again, could be the first line of therapy."
Felix plans to begin treating bacterial infections in people with cystic fibrosis, as these patients typically require a near-constant stream of antibiotics to fight lung infections. The next step will be a small 30-person clinical trial, followed by a larger human trial, usually under the R&D model, before FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) approval. It will take a long time, but Mr. McBride hopes that their approach with programmable viruses will help counter the growth of antibiotic resistance in bacteria.
“We know the antibiotic resistance problem is big right now and will only get worse,” he said. “We have an elegant technological solution to this problem, and we know that our treatment can work. We want to contribute to a future where these infections don't kill more than 10 million people a year, a future that we care about."
Source: 3dnews.ru