Have you heard of bacterio-phage, the virus that kills bacteria? Scientists call them the deadliest being on the planet.But this bacterio-phage will save our lives. Here is how…
Millions of years ago, a war started between two organisms, a war that hasn’t ended yet. An uncountable number of them are dead, as we speak. They are everywhere where life exists. None other than, we are talking about, viruses and bacterias.
Bacteriophage or phage is a sort of virus that kills bacteria. Up to 40% of all bacteria in the oceans are killed by them every single day. There are more Phages on earth than every other organism combined.They are even found inside our intestines.Like any other viruses, phages need a host to survive and reproduce. Usually phages treat a specific bacteria as their host. When phage finds it’s victim, it connects it’s syringe alike part into bacteria’s body and injects it’s genetic meterial.within minutes, bacteria is taken over.
New phages will take birth and bacteria will be compelled to provide necessary nutrients for it’s growth. The process will continue until the bacteria is filled up with brand new phages. At last, the phages together produce an enzyme called endolysin. It is so powerful that,It punches a hole inside the bacteria and millions of phages comes out and begins the cycle anew.These peculiarities made phage the deadliest being on planet Earth.For the past few years, bacteriophages drawn the attention of the second deadliest beings on the planet : Humans.
Bacterias also started to evolve. In case, genetic material of phage failed to reproduce, Crisper cas-9 a protein made inside bacteria will cut it’s D.N.A.Things changed when we found crisper cas 9 could be used for genetic engineering.
In past, bacterias where the major enemies of humans. ferocious plagues caused by them, took the life of millions. Accidently we discovered that, there exists funguses that kills these bacterias. Penicillin was one of them.We called them antibiotics.Antibiotics works like a carpet bomb. They destroy all bacteria that they could find.even the good bacterias inside our intestines that we don’t want to harm.As a result of consistent use, a few bacterias became resistant to almost all antibiotics we have. we call them superbugs.Diseases caused by these super-bugs are increasing day by day.If it continues, soon we will have to face the worst pandemic mankind have ever faced.But, we found a great weapon against these resistant bacterias or super bugs; Phage, the killer virus.Unlike antibiotics, phages are something like guided missiles.They only attack their targeted prey.By Making some genetic changes inside phages, we could define them the resistant bacterias that we wanted to attack.This has already been successfully tested in a person who is affected with, “Pseudomonas Aerugisona “ a bacterium that is naturally resistant to all antibiotics. A few thousand phages were directly inserted into his chest cavity, Whithin a few weeks the infection was cured completely.There is no doubt that phages will make revolutionary changes in medical sector.
Science and technologies are improving drastically, Let’s hope for a better future.
Broken Brain 