Phages and their application against drug-resistant bacteria

At the beginning of the 20th century the phenomenon of spontaneous bacteria l lysis was discovered independently by Twort and d'Herelle. Despite the su ggestion at that time by d'Herelle that these agents might be applied to th e control of bacterial diseases in the west this idea was explored in a des ultory fashion only and was eventually discarded largely due to the advent of extensive antibiotic usage. However, interest was maintained in countrie s of the former Soviet Union where bacteriophage therapy has been applied e xtensively since that time. Central to, this work was the Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology and Virology in Tbilisi, Georgia, which was founded in 1923 through the joint efforts of d'Herelle and the Georgian Geo rge Eliava. Ironically, given his contributions to public health in the Sov iet Union, Eliava was branded as an enemy of the people in 1937 and execute d. d'Herelle never again returned to Georgia. In spite of these tragic even ts this institute remained the focus for phage therapy in the world and des pite being continuously active in this field for 75 years, now struggles fo r its financial life. In the Eliava Institute, phages were sought for bacte rial pathogens implicated in disease outbreaks in different parts of the So viet Union and were dispatched for use in hospitals throughout the country. Although infections caused by a wide variety of bacterial pathogens have b een treated, much of this has been published in Russian and is not readily available in the west. Work has also been carried out in Poland over many y ears and this has only recently been published in English. By contrast, int erest in the west has been limited to a small number of enthusiasts and aca demics and until very recently little interest has been shown. The main rea son that the medical and scientific communities are now beginning to take n otice, is the continuing world-wide rise in the incidence of multiply-antib iotic-resistant bacterial pathogens and the absence of effective means for their control. Recent publicity over the work of the Eliava Institute has c oncentrated the minds of the western world on the potential for infectious disease control that bacteriophage offer, a procedure that is biologically more acceptable than antibiotic use and which has been in use for several d ecades already. (C) 2001 Society of Chemical Industry.