ENGINEERINGNET.BE – The European Centers for Disease Control estimates that up to 35,000 people in Europe die every year from infections due to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which is likely to increase in the future.
In addition to death and disability, these infections lead to longer hospital stays, the need for more expensive medications and higher healthcare costs. Without effective antibiotics or alternatives, the success of modern medicine in treating infections would be compromised.
Bacteriophages are viruses that can kill bacteria. They are a promising alternative for treating infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Phages have a high specificity for their host bacteria and can often infect and kill only one individual strain of one specific bacterial species.
TU Delft recently discovered that certain bacteria build up defense mechanisms to prevent them from being killed by phages. Phages have developed a variety of defense mechanisms against such bacterial strains.
In this project, researchers want to combine these defense mechanisms and create a phage that can infect a wider range of bacterial strains with different defense mechanisms.
The knowledge and techniques in the field of phage defense systems and phage biology of TU Delft in combination with the advanced reading systems, sensitivity tests and microbiological genome editing in a clinical setting of the UMC Utrecht creates a unique synergy.
Before bacteriophages can be applied on a large scale, more high-quality clinical studies are needed that demonstrate the effectiveness of phages in treating infections. The first well-controlled studies of phages for the treatment of infections are now underway.
A better understanding of the interaction between phages and bacteria and how bacteria evade phage infections. is essential to select the best phage candidate for these clinical studies.
UMC Utrecht and TUDelft are therefore developing this set of adapted bacteriophages that have a broad spectrum of activity against clinical P. aeruginosa strains. If successful, the efficacy and safety of these phages could be investigated in clinical trials, for example in patients with implant infections caused by P. aeruginosa.
The project has been awarded more than 500,000 euros by the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research
