How the virus can help in fighting against antibiotic resistance
Phase therapy uses a virus to target bacteria that can help combat antimicrobial resistance. This approach combined with AI can change infection treatment and environmental health in India.
In short
- Phase therapy uses the virus that especially infects bacteria
- India currently depends on most antibiotics for infection
- AI helps identify and analyze 1.3 million viral genomes
Antimicial resistance is not just a silent epidemic – India is one of the heaviest burdens globally.
While the country continues his search for new antibiotics to combat the crisis, researchers are now turning to a virus naturally in the environment as a promising tool to attack and kill multi-drug-resistant bacteria.
Karthik Anantorman, a visiting professor at Wadhwani School of Data Science and AI in IIT Madras, is leading such a project in America by studying the nature of the virus in his natural habitat to attack and kill bacteria, leading a process called phase therapy.
“One approach is to create more antibiotics, but it only postpones the problem. New antibiotics can also give rise to new forms of resistance, create a never -ending cycle. An alternative and promising solution is phase therapy, which uses bacteriophase (or bus) to kill specific bacteria, using virus,” D. Anantharaman, who is a professor for Wonsin.
Finding bacterial viruses
Anantorman and his team found that the virus consists of annual cycles and they can affect other organisms in the ecosystem.
As part of their study, some viruses were found to carry genes that they had taken from organisms that they were infected, helping them to complete significant biological functions.
The research team also put 1.3 million viral genomes together – the largest collection of its kind ever.
“In our laboratory, we are finding out how the phase behaves with time. We studied a single lake for 20 years, using DNA sequencing and artificial intelligence (AI), how the phase population was replaced. Antiraman said.
While phase therapy may look like a relatively new concept for the Indian population and even the West who rely too much on antibiotics, Anantraman mentioned that the virus using virus to kill bacteria has been used in countries such as Russia, Poland, Ukraine and Georgia.
Virus as environmental cleaner
The Wisconsin-Madison Professor said, “Our goal is double: to improve human health and environmental health. The way phase (viruses) can target harmful bacteria in the human body, they can also be used to clean polluted ecological systems,” said the University of Visconsin-Madison Professor.
For example, if a lake turns black or emits an odor like a rotten egg, a sign of hydrogen sulfide produced by bacteria, stages can be used to selectively kill and restore the health of the lake.
Despite their promise, phase therapy is currently used only in kind cases, where all antibiotics have failed and the patient’s condition is important.
How do phase or virus work against bacteria?
One major reason Phase has not entered the treatment of mainstream that researchers still do not fully understand how they develop over time.
As a result, there are no approved phase-based medical products in India, America or Europe.
But phases make great promises, especially when used in combination with antibiotics.
Here’s how it works: When bacteria encounter antibiotics, they come under stress. Sometimes, this stress causes genetic changes that make them resistant.
But in that process, bacteria can also be sensitive to the phase. Therefore, the use of both antibiotics and stages makes a powerful, supplementary treatment strategy simultaneously.
In some cases, antibiotics work where the phase and vice versa.
“A major advantage of the phase is their accuracy. Unlike antibiotics, which kill both harmful and beneficial bacteria, the phase only targets a specific stress. If a person is infected with the pseudomonus, the phase used will kill only the pseudomonous, which will only kill the pseudomonas, which will buck the rest of the body of the body.
Another amazing fact is that the viruses are everywhere – even inside us.
Compared to human cells and our body has 10 to 100 times more viral particles.
These include many harmless stages that quietly regulate the population of bacteria. Phase lakes, rivers, soils, oceans and even are found in our intestines and on our skin.
“In our laboratory, we use both AI – machine learning and deep learning – to identify faster steps from environmental samples. This process, which used to take years, now takes only one day. AI allows us to throw us through millions of DNA sequences and indicate the virus that can infect specific harmful bacteria,” said the unconnected bacteria.
Obstacles persist
However, awareness remains a major obstacle.
Medical community and industries are still focused on antibiotics. Phase therapy has limited investment, and necessary research infrastructure has not yet been created.
To proceed for phase therapy, government support and educational research are necessary.
“Currently the industry is not interested in developing phase-based treatments-it is mostly dependent on institutions and public wealth. But as the risk of antibiotic resistance increases, it is expected to change,” Anantarman said.
Phase therapy is not just a scientific curiosity. This can be a major pillar of future medicine – if we choose to invest in it.
