’All-in-One’ Technique that Could Accelerate Phage-Therapy Diagnosis

(c)CEA Lensless Imaging System Affirms Phage Therapy's Value in Treating Serious Infection, Tracks Phage Resistance and Could Easily Be Implemented in Compact Devices at Phage Labs - GRENOBLE, France - April 13, 2021 - A team of French and Swiss scientists has demonstrated a lensless imaging technique that could easily be implemented in cost-effective and compact devices in phage laboratories to accelerate phage-therapy diagnosis. The growing number of drug-resistant bacterial infections worldwide is driving renewed interest in phage therapy. The WHO has warned of "a slow tsunami" of antibiotic resistance that by 2050 could result in 10 million annual deaths from antibiotic-resistant infections. Based on the use of a personalized cocktail composed of highly specific bacterial viruses, phage therapy employs bacteriophages, a form of virus, to treat pathogenic bacterial infections. Following promising phage-therapy clinical studies treating infection of burn wounds, urinary tract infections and other problems caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a growing body of evidence has built a consensus among scientists that there is synergism between phages and antibiotics. First implemented in 1919, phage therapy relies on a range of tests on agar media to determine the most active phage on a given bacterial target, or to isolate new lytic phages from an environmental sample. However, these culture-based techniques must be interpreted through direct visual detection of plaques.