It takes 10 years and $1 billion for a company to bring a new anti-biotic to market.
But bacteria are constantly evolving and can become resistant to those new drugs within a few years, even just a few months.
One solution may be bacterial killers that change.
They are giving thousands of people a chance of living life without pain, without drugs, and without deadly bacteria.
“I’ve been treated for 20 years for every antibiotic you can think of,” said Greg Breed, who uses IV antibiotics.
Greg Breed barely remembers a time he wasn’t in pain from an anti-drug resistant E. coli infection in his prostate.
“For the last two years of my life, I basically was on IV antibiotics almost year-round,” Breed continued.
“Bacteria definitely are very smart and definitely have multiple ways of overcoming antibiotics that we use to kill them,” said MS Infectious Disease Specialist Saima Aslam MBBS, UCSD.
UCSD Infectious Disease Specialist Saima Aslam connected with a team at Baylor College of Medicine who’s working on a highly personalized solution using bacteria-eating viruses to kill these bacteria.
“What we try to do is generate viruses, they’re called Phage, that are killers, specific killers of bad bacteria,” said Anthony William Maresso, PhD Molecular Virologist at the Baylor College of Medicine.
“They are not going to infect human cells.” Austin Terwilliger, PhD Baylor College of Medicine.
Researchers at Baylor test each patient’s virus against a library of phage in their lab. If one of these kill the bacteria, then infusions are made and sent back to the patient’s doctor. The entire process can take a few weeks to a year. UCSD has treated 19 patients with phage therapy. 80% are infection-free for the first time in a long time.
“This was their end of the road treatment option. And to have that success rate, you know, is really encouraging.” Dr. Saima Aslam continued.
“They have labeled me as a success story now,” Greg Breed concluded.
Greg can now do the things he loves with the people he loves pain-free and medication-free.
