A MONASH University-led project is successfully 'bioprospecting' for viruses known as phages that can kill deadly superbugs.
The Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI) team, led by Dr Rhys Dunstan and Prof Trevor Lithgow of the Bacterial Cell Biology Laboratory, have had some success in tracking down the elusive killers.
Published in Cell Reports, their research sheds new light on how phages can select a 'superbug' bacterium that they will kill while ignoring other bacteria that are good for our health.
The findings could lead to an improvement in how individual phages are chosen to treat bacterial infections resistant to antibiotics.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global issue, with an estimated five million deaths globally in 2019, a number which continues to climb.
Monash University's Centre to Impact AMR runs several superbug surveillance programs that are bioprospecting for phages that kill drug-resistant superbugs.
They aim to pinpoint phages that can kill specific superbugs and use them to develop treatments.
Bacteriophages are the most abundant biological entities on Earth, with an estimated number that is greater than every other organism, including bacteria, combined.
Selecting the right one to treat a given infection is not easy.
Learn more HERE.
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