Difference between revisions of "Phage therapy"

:The discovery of bacteriophage have been subject to debate as to the offical claims of founding. Ernest Hankin, a British bacteriologist, first reported in 1896 on observation of an unidentified antibacterial preventing the spread of cholera (Vibrio cholerae) in the rivers Ganges and Jumna in India [21]. Russian bacteriologist Gamaleya observed a similar phenomenon while working with Bacillus subtilis [48]. The first to hypothesize Bacteriophage as a virus that infects bacteria host cells was Frederick Twort, bacteriologist from England in the early 1900s [70], however due to various reasons such as lack of funds, could not pursue his findings. It was not until two years later that Felix d'Herelle, a French-Canadian microbiologist at the Institut Pasteur in Paris "offically" discovers bacteriophage, which he named after "bacteria" and "phagein" or to devour, in Greek[68,70].

:D'Herelle first observed bacteriophages studying microbiologic means of controlling an epizootic of locusts in Mexico in 1910. He later used his observations of bacteriophages to perform one of the first phage therapy techniques known on severe hemorrhagic dysentery outbreaks among French soldiers stationed at Maisons-Laffitte in the summer of 1915. At Maisons-Laffitte, d'Herelle made bacterium-free filtrates of the patients' fecal samples and mixed and incubated them with Shigella strains isolated from the patients. A portion of the mixtures was inoculated into experimental animals (as part of d'Herelle's studies on developing a vaccine against bacterial dysentery), and a portion was spread on agar medium in order to observe the growth of the bacteria. It was on these agar cultures that d'Herelle observed the appearance of small, clear areas, which he initially called taches, then taches vierges, and, later, plaques [68]. His findings were presented in September 1917 meeting of the Academy of Sciences and later published [18].