Interesting piece from this month's Wired, about bacteriophages: microorganisms that attack bacteria and kill them in your bloodstream. Bacteriophages are being held out as an alternative to antibiotics (in the age of antibiotic-resistant superbugs that are only made stronger by the application of stronger antibiotics, an alternative is sorely needed), ironically, since they were set aside as ineffective when compared to the newly discovered penicillin in the forties.
Set aside by the West, but avidly (if sloppily) pursued by the Soviets, who saw bacteriophages as their best defense against infection. Now, former Soviet scientists have abandoned their bankrupted, catastrophic science-parks in Tblisi and emigrated to the US, there to establish a rigorous science of bacteriophages.
To gather new strains, Sulakvelidze need only drop a bucket into Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The waters of the Chesapeake Bay, of which the harbor is an inlet, have enough exchange with the Atlantic that he can find a phage for almost any species of bacteria, he says. If one doesn't work, he simply refills his bucket and looks for another that does.
"This upgradability is one of the unique qualities of phages," Sulakvelidze adds. "Developing a new antibiotic takes 10 years and God knows how many millions of dollars."
As he puts it, "Mother Nature runs the best genetic engineering lab out there. No institution or company can match it."
