The crisis of antibiotic resistant superbugs has been creeping up on us for the past 88 years. Alexander Flemming, discoverer of penicillin, the first antibiotic, in that year, said it well when he received is Nobel prize:
“It is not difficult to make microbes resistant to penicillin in the laboratory by exposing them to concentrations not sufficient to kill them, and the same thing has occasionally happened in the body. The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone in the shops. Then there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant.”
The superbugs that threaten to drag us back into the pre-antibiotic era today were completely predictable from the very start.
One way to think about the antibiotics is to think of them as weapons in a war that is being waged between microbes all around us. Microbes have fought for time immemorial using antibiotics and they have evolved an equally impressive cache of countermeasures: genes that confer resistance to antibiotics.
When humans stumbled into this on-going battle, we had little appreciation for the collection of resistance mechanisms that already exist in nature. To make things worse, we severely underestimate the rates that these could be borrowed or repurposed across species boundaries very easily. This is a process we now know as horizontal gene transfer.
Given our current position, looking back at the on-going microbial melee for new potential allies in this struggle is warranted. In some parts of the world, including Russia and Georgia, the natural parasites of bacteria, Bacteriophages, have been put to use in medicine since before World War I.
Bacteriophages (phages for short) were discovered roughly 100 years ago, before antibiotics and they have been used medicinally in the form of small liquid vials, full of mixed cocktails of bacteriophages. Bacteriophage therapy practitioners have designed these phage cocktails and used them to great effect while the rest of Western medicine pursued Flemming’s new antibiotics.
Bacteriophages are not currently accepted in Western medicine but they are approved for use in food preparation by the USDA. Bacteriophage therapy has many obstacles to overcome before it might be accepted. One of these is the double edged sword of specificity. Bacteriophages are highly specific to a particular bacterial strain. This means that they will not hurt the beneficial microbes that contribute to our health. However it also means that finding the right one for a particular infection requires a stockpile of phage types. We need to learn more about the bacteriophages around us before we will be ready for this sort of personalized approach to fighting infection. There are estimated to be 1031 bacteriophages on the planet so as long as we can find them and study them, we have access to the stockpiles we need.
In order to learn more about these important entities, the undergraduates that take our Bacteriophage Discover and Genomics paper at Massey University are contributing to the global pool of phage information. We have joined the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science Education Alliance programme to hunt for phages that are able to infect a close cousin of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Last year we found four phages and sequenced two. As far as we know these are the very first Mycobacteriophages to be found in New Zealand (below figure).
To hear more about Bacteriophages, watch Heather’s TedX talk.
It’s an exciting time to be a phage hunter! To learn more about our phage hunt, check out the student blog, Phage Hunt NZ.
Dr Heather Hendrickson is a Senior Lecturer at Massey University. She has been dabbling in Phage Hunting since her time at the Pittsburgh Bacteriophage Institute as a PhD student. Heather’s laboratory at Massey University, Auckland studies the evolution of bacteria and bacteriophage discovery in Pseudomonas, Mycobacteria and Lactococcus.
What is InfectedNZ?
Hey, Aotearoa. It’s time we had a chat about infectious diseases and what we’re going to do about the looming antimicrobial armageddon. That’s why we’ve asked leading health, social and economic researchers, and people with personal stories, to help us get real about our vulnerability and discuss solutions. Follow their blogs right here at tepunhahamatatini.ac.nz and watch the conversation spread across social media with #infectedNZ.
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Kwa miaka 88 iliyopita, magonjwa ya bakteria yenye nguvu sana ambayo hayatoweza kuua wadudu wamekuwa wakitokea. "Alexander Fleming, mtambuzi wa dawa ya kuua viini ya kwanza, alisema hivi alipopokea tuzo ya Nobel: ""Si vigumu kufanya viini vya kuua viini vya kuua viini vya kuua viini vya kuua viini vya kuua viini vya kuua viini vya kuua viini vya kuua viini vya kuua viini vya kuua viini vya kuua viini.""" Wakati unaweza kuja wakati penicillin inaweza kununuliwa na mtu yeyote katika maduka. "Kisha kuna hatari kwamba mtu asiyejua anaweza kwa urahisi kujidhulumu na kwa kufunua vimelea vyake kwa kiasi kisicho cha mauti cha dawa hiyo kuwafanya wawe na upinzani. "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" Njia moja ya kufikiria dawa za kuua viini ni kuwafikiria kama silaha katika vita vinavyoendelea kati ya vimelea vinavyotuzunguka. Kwa muda mrefu, wadudu wamekuwa wakipambana na dawa za kuua viini na wamebuni njia za kukabiliana na dawa za kuua viini: jeni zinazotoa upinzani kwa dawa za kuua viini. Wakati wanadamu walipoingia katika vita hivi, tulikuwa na shukrani kidogo kwa mkusanyiko wa utaratibu wa upinzani ambao tayari upo katika asili. Kwa kuongezea, tunapunguza sana viwango ambavyo vinaweza kukopwa au kubadilishwa kwa urahisi zaidi ya mipaka ya spishi. Huu ni mchakato ambao sasa tunaujua kuwa uhamisho wa jeni wa usawa. Kwa kuzingatia msimamo wetu wa sasa, kuangalia nyuma kwenye mapigano ya microbial yanayoendelea kwa washirika wapya wa uwezekano katika mapambano haya ni halali. Katika sehemu fulani za dunia, ikiwa ni pamoja na Urusi na Georgia, vimelea vya asili vya bakteria, Bacteriophages, vimetumiwa katika dawa tangu kabla ya Vita vya Kwanza vya Ulimwengu.Bacteriophages (phages kwa kifupi) ziligunduliwa karibu miaka 100 iliyopita, kabla ya antibiotics na zimetumiwa kwa dawa katika fomu ya vial ndogo za kioevu, kamili ya cocktails mchanganyiko wa bakteria. Wataalamu wa tiba ya bakteria wamebuni cocktails hizi za phage na kuzitumia kwa matokeo makubwa wakati dawa nyingine za Magharibi zilipokuwa zikifuatilia dawa mpya za kuua viini za Flemming. Bacteriophages ni aina ya viungo vya bakteria ambavyo vimepitishwa na FDA na vimepitishwa na FDA. Tiba ya bakteria-vipepeo ina vizuizi vingi vya kushinda kabla ya kukubaliwa. Mojawapo ni upanga wenye makali mawili wa usahihi. Bacteriophages ni maalum sana kwa aina fulani ya bakteria. Hii inamaanisha kwamba hazitaumiza vijidudu vyenye manufaa vinavyochangia afya yetu. Hata hivyo, pia inamaanisha kwamba kupata moja sahihi kwa maambukizo maalum inahitaji hifadhi ya aina phage. """Tunahitaji kujifunza zaidi kuhusu bakteria zinazotuzunguka kabla hatujajitayarisha kwa mbinu hii ya kibinafsi ya kupambana na maambukizo." Inakadiriwa kuwa kuna bakteria 1031 duniani, na ikiwa tutawapata na kuwachunguza, tutaweza kupata hifadhi za bakteria hizo. Kwa hivyo, kwa sababu ya kuvutia kwa wanafunzi wa chuo kikuu, Bacteriophage Discover na Genome ni moja ya masomo bora zaidi ya utafiti wa kisayansi ya kisasa. "Hii ni kwa sababu ya mpango wa ""Science Education Alliance"" wa Taasisi ya Tiba ya Howard Hughes, ambao una lengo la kugundua vimelea vinavyoweza kuambukiza jamaa wa karibu wa Mycobacterium tuberculosis." Mwaka jana tulipata phages nne na kuorodhesha mbili. Kwa kadiri tunavyojua hizi ni Mycobacteriophages ya kwanza kabisa kupatikana katika New Zealand (picha hapa chini). Ili kusikia zaidi kuhusu Bacteriophages, angalia hotuba ya Heather ya TedX. Ni wakati wenye kusisimua kuwa mwindaji wa phage! Ili kujifunza zaidi kuhusu uwindaji wetu wa phage, angalia blogi ya mwanafunzi, Phage Hunt NZ. Daktari Heather Hendrickson ni Mhadhiri Mkuu katika Chuo Kikuu cha Massey. Amekuwa dabbling katika Phage Hunting tangu wakati wake katika Pittsburgh Bacteriophage Taasisi kama mwanafunzi PhD. Maabara ya Heather katika Chuo Kikuu cha Massey, Auckland inachunguza mageuzi ya bakteria na ugunduzi wa bacteriophage katika Pseudomonas, Mycobacteria na Lactococcus. InfectedNZ ni nini? Hey, Aotearoa. Ni wakati sisi alikuwa na mazungumzo kuhusu magonjwa ya kuambukiza na nini sisi ni kwenda kufanya kuhusu armageddon antimicrobial looming. Hiyo ndiyo sababu tumeuliza watafiti mashuhuri wa afya, kijamii na kiuchumi, na watu wenye hadithi za kibinafsi, kutusaidia kupata ukweli juu ya udhaifu wetu na kujadili suluhisho. "Kama unavyoona, blogu hii imeandikwa na ""Tepunahamatatini"" na ina ujumbe wa ""Infected New Zealand"" (NZ)." Kwa upande mwingine, kwa sababu ya kutegemea data ya watu wa Figure.NZ. Chati za Super Duper zinategemea data kutoka kwa hazina za umma, idara za serikali, wasomi na mashirika. "Kuchunguza ""#InfectedNZ Data Board"" na kujiandikisha ili kuunda bodi yako mwenyewe ya data juu ya mada yoyote inayovuma mashua yako."