Some scientists are trying to engineer bacteriophage to...

Some scientists are trying to engineer bacteriophage to treat bacterial infections in humans when the infections do not respond to chemical antibiotics. a. What possible advantages might phage therapy have over antibiotic therapy? b. Describe potential difficulties that would need to be overcome for phage therapy to succeed. c. How might researchers best confront the issue that bacterial cells could become resistant to bacteriophage just as they could to antibiotics?

Some scientists are trying to engineer bacteriophage to treat bacterial infections in humans when the infections do not respond to chemical antibiotics.
a. What possible advantages might phage therapy have over antibiotic therapy?
b. Describe potential difficulties that would need to be overcome for phage therapy to succeed.
c. How might researchers best confront the issue that bacterial cells could become resistant to bacteriophage just as they could to antibiotics?

Transcript

00:01 Here it says, some scientists are trying to engineer bacteriophage to treat bacterial infections in humans when the infection does not respond to chemical antibiotics.

00:13 It says, what possible advantages might a phage therapy have over antibiotic therapy? so advantages here are going to include, for example, specificity.

00:26 So bacteriophages are highly specific to particular bacterial strains, reducing collateral damage to beneficial bacteria in the body.

00:33 This specificity can minimize disruptions to the microbiome compared to broad -spectrum antibiotics.

00:39 For example, in the case of using clindamycin, it can cause pseudomembranous colitis, or that is because of the spread of the antibiotic admixture of some good bacteria in your gut and some bad bacteria like rosarium difficile multiplies during bad conditions, causing this disease.

01:02 Then you have also evolutionary adaptability.

01:15 So bacteriophages can evolve alongside bacteria, adapting to changes in bacterial resistance more rapidly than antibiotics, potentially overcoming bacterial resistance.

01:24 Then we have also lack of antibiotic resistance.

01:34 Bacteria may not have a persisting resistance to certain phages, providing an alternative treatment for infections resistant to antibiotics.

01:42 The next question is, describe potential difficulties that would need to be overcome for phage therapy to succeed.

01:48 So in this case, for example, we can have specificity challenges.

01:58 So finding bacteriophages that effectively target the infected bacteria can be challenging due to the diverse nature of bacterial strains.

02:06 Then we have also regulatory hurdles...

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