I am in huge favour of daily antibiotics which prolong life of
cystic fibrosis sufferers etc. They should be used by all .

independent.co.uk
Phages are also everywhere - probably the most numerous life form on
the planet; a millilitre of water from a river will contain about 200
million of them. "We've patented a way of collecting phages from the
wild," says Nick Housby of Novolytics, one of the companies in this
race. "If a new, resistant strain of MRSA emerged in hospitals we
could have a phage to attack it within a matter of weeks," he adds.
At least they could in maybe three or four years time, when their
cocktail of about eight different phages, one for each of the main
resistant strains of MRSA, has passed all the trials. Their first
product will be a nasal spray to kill off the MRSA that 30 per cent of
people carry harmlessly in their respiratory system, but which can be
deadly to people with weakened immune systems in hospital
Phage-based treatments are still sold over the counter in some
eastern-European countries, their use supported by years of clinical
experience, although little of it backed by conventional trials. The
only detailed account of their use was published by the Polish Academy
of Sciences, which summarised the effectiveness of phage therapy on
550 patients in 10 hospitals who were suffering from serious
conditions such as septicaemia, abscesses, broncho-pneumonia and
fistulas. The reported recovery rate was 94 per cent.

Such reports cut little ice with the UK regulatory authorities, so the
race is on to do the first clinical trial with humans using phages,
not just in the UK but anywhere in the West. Those at a firm called
Biocontrol believe they are the front runners. "Some time in the next
few months we will be placing a phage solution in the ears of patients
who have become infected following surgery," says the chief scientific
officer of the company, Dr David Harper.

The bug they are targeting is called Pseudomonas aeruginosa which is
responsible for, among other things, chronic ear infections and the
clogging mucus found in the lungs of people with cystic fibrosis.
"We've already run a successful trial on 10 dogs who had failed
several rounds of antibiotic treatment," says Harper.

But perhaps the most ingenious new phage line is coming from a firm
called Phico Therapeutics. "While I was working in the States some
years ago I discovered this protein that is able to totally shut down
a bacterium's DNA," says Heather Fairhead, the founder of the company.
"The protein is only found in a species of bacterium that forms spores
when food supplies run low," she explains. "It goes into a kind of
suspended animation and all its DNA becomes inactive." In Fairhead's
system the phage is only used as a delivery vehicle - "its one aim in
life is to target bacterial DNA, so it's perfect". The first
application will be a barrier cream for potential MRSA carriers in
hospitals.

Sales of a successful product could be huge, and the rivalry between
the contenders is hotting up. "I should point out that we aren't using
any genetic modification in our product," Housby of Novolytics
e-mailed me "and our phages keep on reproducing, which Phico's don't.
Fairhead was equally keen to stress her rivals' shortcomings. "When
you kill bacteria using wild phages," she explained "they make the
bacteria burst, so toxins get spewed out, along with genetic material
that can carry resistance."

It's to sort out such possible issues that the trials need to be done.
For instance, although there should be no problems putting phages into
creams or ointments, some experts worry about putting them directly
into the body. "There's the possibility of the phage being mopped up
by the immune system or causing an allergic response," warns Geoffrey
Hanlon of Brighton University.

There is a nice symmetry about the notion that an alliance between the
principles of Florence Nightingale and a revamped bit of Russian
health care may eventually roll back the advancing bacterial hordes.