Useful bacteria killers
Countless viruses live in our bodies. Most of them are phages - and among other things they help to keep our bacterial tenants under control.
Tough mucus clogged Isabelle Carnell-Holdaway's lungs. This was nothing new for the girl, who is one of around 70,000 cystic fibrosis patients worldwide. An inherited defect in a protein that transports chlorine ions through the membranes of lining tissue cells caused the viscous mucus to form in her airways - a typical symptom of cystic fibrosis. The viscous secretion restricted lung function and provided an excellent breeding ground for microbes that settled in the airways. For this reason, Isabelle had been infected with bacterial germs - Mycobacterium abscessus - for many years, which damaged her respiratory organs so badly that she had to endure a lung transplant at the age of 16. Unfortunately, the infection was not eliminated, on the contrary: Because of the constant treatment with antibiotics, the disease-causing bacteria had become resistant to them and spread throughout the body when Isabelle had to take immunosuppressive drugs as a result of the organ transplant. The situation seemed to be becoming completely hopeless. No known therapy could help the girl now.
Then Isabelle's mother Jo had an idea which she shared with the attending physician, Helen Spencer, of Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. In 2018, they teamed up with leading virus researchers led by Graham Hatfull from the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania to try out an unconventional therapy. They gave Isabelle something called bacteriophages - which are viruses that infect bacteria…
