La phagothérapie, inventée il y a un siècle par un biologiste de l’Institut Pasteur, utilise des virus pour manger des bactéries. Avec les antibiotiques, les pays occidentaux se sont détournés de cette médecine, mais certains la pratiquent toujours, à l’image de la Géorgie. Comme tous les matins depuis deux semaines, Marc et sa mère partent…
Patient Education: Chronic Wound What is a chronic wound? – A chronic wound may be defined as one that is physiologically impaired due to a disruption of the wound healing cycle as a result of impaired angiogenesis, innervation, or cellular migration, among other reasons. Examples of chronic wounds include nonhealing or infected surgical or traumatic…
We are slowly running out of ammunition to fight antibiotic resistant bacteria. Listener Peter wants to know whether a therapy that he’d heard about in the 1980s could be revived to help us where antibiotics falls short.CrowdScience travels to Georgia where “phages”, viruses that hunt and kill bacteria, have been used for nearly 100 years…
Patient education: Diabetic foot What is a Diabetic Foot? – Diabetic neuropathy is a type of nerve damage that can occur if you have diabetes. High blood sugar (glucose) can injure nerves throughout your body and cause poor blood circulation. Nerve damage can make you lose feeling in your feet. Foot sores and cuts…
Patient education: Prostatitis What is Prostatitis? – Prostatitis is an infection or inflammation of the prostate gland, a walnut-sized gland situated directly below the bladder in men.What causes Prostatitis? – Prostatitis can be infectious (acute or chronic bacterial prostatitis) or noninfectious origin (Chronic pelvic pain syndrome). Acute and chronic bacterial prostatitis is most commonly…
Patient education: Cystitis What is Cystitis? – Cystitis is the medical term for inflammation of the bladder. What causes Cystitis? – Cystitis can be infectious (bacterial, viral, yeast induced) or noninfectious (interstitial cystitis,drug-induced cystitis, radiation cystitis, foreign-body cystitis, chemical cystitis and cystitis associated with other conditions) origin. Most cases of bacterial cystitis are caused by…
A century ago, the French-Canadian microbiologist Félix d’Herelle, recognized an “invisible microbe” that he proposed was a ‘bacteriophage’ virus with bacteria-devouring properties. Read More at William C. Summers, “Bacteriophage Therapy”, (Annu. Rev. Microbiol. 2001. 55:437–51) Eliava Institute The Eliava Institute was founded in 1923 by distinguished Georgian physician, bacteriologist and phage researcher Prof. George…
Bacteria have a sneaky evolutionary advantage: their own version of the internet for swapping survival solutions. It’s a living network of viruses that can shuttle genetic information between unrelated cells. Known as transduction, this process is one of the ways that bacteria can bypass the generation-by-generation plodding of vertical inheritance and instead share information horizontally,…
Bacteriophages are “bacteria eaters” in that they are viruses that infect and destroy bacteria. Sometimes called phages, these microscopic organisms are ubiquitous in nature. In addition to infecting bacteria, bacteriophages also infect other microscopic prokaryotes known as archaea. This infection is specific to a specific species of bacteria or archaea. A phage that infects E. coli for instance, will not infect anthrax bacteria. Since…
Pranav Johri completed five rounds of antibiotics to treat a persistent prostate problem in his early 30s, but his case flummoxed doctors because the medicine seemed to make him worse. “My entire life had become so limited,” says the 35-year-old workaholic from India’s capital city, recalling how he couldn’t summon strength for much more than…