How a long-forgotten virus could help us solve the antibiotics crisis | Alexander Belcredi 

A friend of mine got shot in Amsterdam and his leg got infected with a bacteria that was resistant to antibiotics. In the end they wanted to amputate just above the knee. Than his girlfriend, who is Russian, suggested to go to former Soviet Union republic Georgie. He got treated with phages and he kept his leg, he still plays mini-football twice a week. He was away for about six weeks. When he told the consultant in the hospital in Brussels that he wanted to go get treatment with phages, the doctor said that it was normal for people in his situation to be desperate and try anything...but phages would not help him. That “consultant” was rather surprised to see him two months later with a cured leg.

17 bacteria disliked the video

One of the greatest TED speeches, optimistic news about medicine.

I heard about phages years ago too and thought it was going to be solution to resistant bacteria, but haven't heard anything since.

"Everything new is well forgotten old" fits here perfectly. Phages were widely used in USSR since 1930s and are still being used in Russia (12 approved active substances), Georgia and some other Eastern European countries. Moreover, they were also used in USA in 1940s (produced by company Eli Lilly).

How sad must it be for the individuals who had various body parts amputated as a result of a antibiotic resistant bacteria, only to find out phages could’ve saved the said body part and are openly available in Russia.

In Russia you can simlpy buy bottle with fages (for one bacteria) in any pharmacy. And they are really cheap. But it's still not realy common because you have to find out exactly what kind of bacterial infection do you have before using fages. Wide range antibiotics is more simple way. Hope there will be company in western world that develop this topic and make it more usefull.

I'm a nurse. I want to serve this medication to my patient with multiple antibiotics resistance bacteria. It's sad to see some of my patients stay at hospital for months because of this infection

Very interesting video. Thanks 👍

So Alex, have you really quit your job and dedicated your life to this new project? Or is it just another phage you’re going through?

Phage therapy is very advanced and useful in several countries like Russia, Georgia and Poland. Maybe he tried to belittle availability of this treatment to promote his own company saying that they are only one who does it, but there are many others. And he only heard of it five years ago? Many hospitals were using it for over twenty years.

We need more people to become aware of this kind of treatment. Its been around forever but never found adoption in the western world.

I've been hearing about phages and their potential for treating bacterial infections for years. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to have been much progress made in developing phage therapy here in the west.

ted is now becoming an education channel *the teaching community would like to know where you live*

Wow! Did I hear a sigh of relief from the inside of my brain?

I love that, for almost all of the TED videos, I can speed it to 1.5x and still understand them as if they were normal conversations.

*Science makes life more interesting !* The more we understand, the more options we can have to live a fun and easy life. Phages will save a lot of lives. We can be happy about their help for disinfection.

First heard about phages way back in 10th standard,but building a pharma-industry, never came into mind! Well done Sir..

And the best part, as both bacteria and phage evolve, the old phage drug might be obsolete, but the new phage drug will always work. This is good news for patient and drug company.

Im confused when they say they were forgotten. Back in the 90's we had a whole section on them in my nursing school we talked about the growing science around them.

Back when I started secondary school, a prestigious grammar school in London in 1976, I mentioned bacteriophages in a biology class. The class was being taught by the elderly Head of Biology in the absence of our young newly qualified regular teacher. The elderly Head of Biology (then in his fifties) refused to believe that such entities which attacked bacteria existed! I was too young to know that they were viruses - I had seen the electron microscope image in a 1969 Time Life Guide to Science book we had at home with the caption 'A molecule comes to life'. Later at university where I studied Molecular Biology, I noticed that the standard historical textbook 'Molecular Genetics' by Stent and Calendar had originally been called 'Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology'.

The fact they can self replicate fascinates me. I remember seeing something about how the future of science is microscopic robots that could replicate and then destroy disease or tumors. Maybe phages are the next step towards a cure for cancer? I really want to study this in college and it might’ve just changed me from a dentistry major to some other biology, chemistry, or engineering. I just want to do something in stem that changes the world rather than just work a lofty dentistry job. I’ve never had any sort of passion like this before.

I learned of this years ago, and learning that the only serious research was being done in Europe tried to obtain a sample, but was unable to. With renewed talk I still can't find any.

I heard about phages in high school. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you!

Awesome,thanks to all the great and smart people making our life better every day

This was so fascinating!

Encouraging speech on Phages, giving hope for treatments to come! 👍

I am Russian and have once been treated with phages. I have been suffering from soar throat for several month. When I visited a doctor, first the infection and its resistance to antibiotics was identified (it happened to be Pseudomonas aeruginosa with resistance to some antibiotics). My treatment was some antibiotic course followed by phage (to this bacteria). The treatment was successful. But generally the fact that some medicine is used in Russia don't says much about its efficiency. For example, the same treatment included probiotic drug (Linex), but as I learned latter it is fairly dubious whether it is actually helpful.

That's very cool! Just learned about this in medical microbiology. From what I remember, there were a ton of negatives at the time; so I hope these get resolved.

About time, I heard of Phag back in the 90's as a kid watching a CBC documentary. Was about the research that was done with Phag in Russia during the cold war

We here in Russia have different phages in pharmacies and you can buy them even without prescription. Usually they are packed into 20ml bottles of liquid without any particlar smell or taste. They are usually for different types of bacteria (like one for staphylococcys, other for streptococcus etc). Usually there are mixture of phages for 3-5 bacteria in every phage. And yes, you need to do sensitivity-test (like with antibiotics), because bacteria could be resistant to phages. BUT maybe couple months later there would be no resistance, because phages-industry always develop phages in order to overcome new resistance (unlike antibiotic, which is always the same unless new generation of particular type of antibiotics is developed). You can even make phage specifically for YOUR bacteria, but this is theoretically, I've never heard of this practically because I suppose it could be costly.

This is very Interesting and Informative.

Thank u for the video

Thank you! Very good idea

The best part is that phages evolve as well. So the bacteria evolves? No problem.

I first heard about phages from a program that was on the tv in the early 90's in the UK. There was a place in Russia that had hundreds of these stored but due to the breakup of the soviet union they were struggling to preserve them, not heard of it since.

Imagine phages being added to Plague Inc.

This is so cool! I'm lucky to be alive at this point in time.

👍🏼 Great Talk

Hello, I am Morshed from Bangladesh. My mother had urinary tract infection for the last 20 years. And doctors suggested antibiotics. She used but the disease kept occuring in different times of the year. And every doctor used culture to see what antibiotics had been used and what are still left for her to use. We used almost all antibiotics present in the market. And I don't think there's any more than 2 or 3 left to use. I really hope to see these phases being improved. Who knows, maybe we might be able to use it one day on my mother. She keeps battling. This occurs almost every month. Inflammation in kidney and UT and a lot of pain. Something the antibiotics do more damage than the infection. I wish there was a quick solution for this. And I wish we had enough money to solve it, like to go out to a foreign country for treatment 😔.

Wow so amazing and interesting!!!

Amazing!

I can already imagine the future cospiracies: EVil sCieNtiSts inJeCt VirUseS

Wow this is interesting, thank you. I needed this break from all the insanity going on in my country.

How do you produce phages? And how do you relate the bacteria which help in digestion?

A friend had a wound which would never heal on his abdomen from a burn. He tried honey from New Zealand which healed the wound. I am a skeptic and read this is a successful treatment for many documented on Medline .

Great and informative video

Extremely great video. Hope that this reaches many students of medical and biological majors. They might change the future.

It was really new to me INTERESTING‼ from Japan~~

So cool!

Good Ted talk.

Albeit I'm not a student of science but I'm fascinated by hearing this stuff! Biology is so interesting, especially on molecular level.

Wonderful

great speech..

LOL that guy's glasses at 1:22

Super cool!

Superb speech..Superb subject...

Very interesting

מדהים !!!!!!!!!!

The good and bad! Lovely.

All I can think about is the Phage from Star Trek: Voyager

Brilliant idea

Excellent speaker

This is really interesting, this is really going to be a massive breakthrough! Maybe the antibiotic resistance crisis won't come as soon as we think! :D

Excelente vídeo!

Omg this is super interesting. I would really like to work on this field after graduation! WOW

i’m in high school and lucky enough to be a part of ecybermission, and we’ve made it our mission to find phages that will attack e.coli (thanks to that lettuce outbreak) and cyanobacteria. it’s interesting stuff

Very old news actually, this technology is known for decades but It's not as cheap as common antibiotics.

I enjoyed your video, and your explanation was very easy to comprehend. The question i have is can this forgotten virus be used to combat cancer?? I've lost my young daughter to cancer some years ago and still grieve the loss. I did investigate a scientist at Ottawa Ont. Canada where he was experimenting with viruses to kill cancer. I asked if he could try this method to cure my daughters cancer and his response was that the Gov't did not allow this.. I pleaded with him with no avail, however a few years later clinical trial were started with some success. This makes me reflect had some leniency be given by Gov't regulations my daughter may still be alive today. Regards, Anthony Belcredi Canada

Think of a Virus what comes to mind? Me in 2020: Covid-19

Alexander Belcredi is absolutely correct.

Welcome to biotechnology my friends

Very nyc topic

This is awesome

This talk was interesting

The beauty of microbiology

Very inspiring idea, thank you for the video and hello from East Turkistan 🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋😊😊😊😊 many many love 💙 💜 💙 💜 💙 💜

Applied science like this has done more for humans than Government...religion...or Politics...put together.

This is a beautiful topic

Good luck, sir!

The big question is whether or not these companies will be allowed to patent the specific DNA of the phages they develop/discover?

11:03 the moment when we look back and see the last happy time before we created superphages.

The hero we all need but not deserve

Fank you for your furro and informative forts on this topic. If the ferapy becomes available in the next decade, I'm sure fings will become much better for helfcare!

GOOD!

I remember hearing of bacteriophages when I was a kid back in the 60s. I wondered why the doctors weren't using them back then. It turns out that the Soviets were using them. Unfortunately, the Western world wasn't. But, it wasn't unknown. In fact, a movie called Andromeda Strain used the concept.

Good 👍🏻

Phages are a class of angel. So are bacteria, fungi, and parasites. Do what you will with this information.

What's about bacterial infections, where the bacteria doesn't have a cell wall? Like the bacteria that causes Lyme-disease?

Why are we delaying their use?

Using phages right now for my sore throat

This was the exact opening of I Am Legend.

We know you're there ted, there is no point in hiding.

RU-vid, recommend me video just like this.

Did he really forgot to mention that phages also evolve with their target bacteria?!? THAT is a major point in their favor. Bacteria gets resistant to a specific strain of phage? A new strain emerges to match it :)

Приятно видеть как медицина двигается семимильными шагами и как уменьшается количество "непобедимых" болезней.

My hands started itching when he said 10 billion.

Russia and some parts of Europe did tried out phage therapy on patients with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics 100yrs ago and to this day

I hope by the day ill become a doctor a bacteriophage anti-staph would be in a pharmacy somewhere in my country