The History of Phage Therapy

Phage therapy uses viruses called bacteriophages to destroy specific bacteria. Scientists are hopeful that they could become a tool to fight antibiotic-resistant germs. In this video, Patrick Kelly guides you through the history of phage therapy's development.
☠️NONE OF THE INFORMATION IN THIS VIDEO SHOULD BE USED AS MEDICAL ADVICE OR OPINION. IT IS FOR GENERAL EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT☠️
🔗 L I N K S 🔗
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📜 S O U R C E S 📜
The Good Virus by Tom Ireland www.amazon.com/Good-Virus-Ama...
The Perfect Predator by Stephanie Strathdee www.amazon.com/Perfect-Predat...
Annotated script here: / phage-video-is-97650618
Bacteriophage Therapy of Bacterial Infections: The Rediscovered Frontier (2021)
www.mdpi.com/1424-8247/14/1/34
Standardized bacteriophage purification for personalized phage therapy (2020) www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
Phage Therapy: A Renewed Approach to Combat Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (2019) www.cell.com/cell-host-microb...
Phage Cocktail Development for Bacteriophage Therapy (2021) www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
Hankin paper (1896) archive.org/details/annalesde... www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/1...
A Brief History of Shigella (2018) www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
An Early History of Phage Therapy in the United States (2021) www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
Bacteriophage prehistory (2011) www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
The virus in the rivers: histories and antibiotic afterlives of the bacteriophage at the sangam in Allahabad (2020) royalsocietypublishing.org/do...
Bacteriophage Therapy (2001) www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
The Third Age of Phage (2005) journals.plos.org/plosbiology...
An invisible microbe that is antagonistic to the dysentery bacillus (1917) by F. d’Herelle - translation of original French www.sciencedirect.com/science...
Le bacteriophage (1921) by D’Herelle archive.org/details/lebactrio...
Bacteriophage and Staph skin infections (1921) gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt...
Cholera and Plague in India: The Bacteriophage Inquiry of 1927-1936 web.archive.org/web/201708111...
The Adoption and Survival of Bacteriophage Therapy in the USSR (2018) academic.oup.com/jhmas/articl...
The prospect for bacteriophage therapy in Western medicine (2003) www.nature.com/articles/nrd11...
An interview with Elizabeth Kutter www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
IMAGES
Portrait of Steffanie A. Strathdee by Scott Lafee for Triton Magazine. CC-BY-SA 4.0 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steffan...
creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Intralytix Headquarters by Rayford Payne. CC-BY-SA 4.0
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...
• Cholera bacteria can s...
💻 C O N T A C T 💻
patkellyteaches [at] gmail.com
⌛T I M E S T A M P S ⌛
0:00 intro
0:48 What is a Phage
2:00 Ernest Hankin
5:18 Fredrick Twort
6:50 Felix d’Herelle
16:52 Phage Therapy in the Soviet Union
22:19 Phage Therapy in the USA
25:16 Challenges to phage therapy
28:09 Why are people hopeful?
#historyofmedicine #medicalhistory

[@PatKellyTeaches]

The antibiotics series is over, but my supporters on Patreon got a bonus video all about the history of Neosporin. You can get access to exclusive videos, early access to future YT videos, and more by supporting me at www.patreon.com/corporis

[@ThePhiphler]

It's over.

[@Nostripe361]

Do bacteria ever loose antibiotic resistance naturally or are they permanently resistant to it without medical treatment like bacteriophage

[@albigensiac3206]

Patrick!!! We talked about this last summer; you said you were making a phage video; I was delighted, then waited and checked, and waited and checked for MONTHS. I thought you gave up on it. The main reason I personally am waiting with bated breath, for phage therapy to become acceptable, is because I have severe allergic reactions to most antibiotics! So, yeah, the safety of phages seems much more promising, in comparison. (Did you ever skip over Eliava's murder, sooo smoothly!) All in all? Your work was so very well done, Patrick! I couldn't find a single mistake in the whole video! Kudos to you, SIR!!!

[@everythingpony]

Over? Please more

[@raynerhandrian1486]

Using viruses against superbugs sounds like using malware against scammers by sending it to their DM.

[@seymourclearly]

These biological systems arent computers, they are much more evolved

[@3g0st]

not really, scammers exist because of economic problems and low social opportunity, they arent immutable "bad people". Comparison requires using a stereotype to hold ground probably isnt as good as a comparison as u want it to be

[@happysloth3208]

⁠@@seymourclearlyno it’s an analogy lol

[@ShardulIyer]

​@@happysloth3208correct & while viralophage are highly complex, bacterialophage have been studied for sometime. Ofcourse there's always a risk of accidentally empowering them instead of destroying them - Irrespectively the analogy is spot on considering just coz bacteria evolves, doesn't mean that we can't guide it's evolution to become less deadly as happened with the various foreign virus, bacteria living in our body without affecting us. PS - bat's immune system are also like this, it initially evolved to combat the cancer the bats could get due to the extreme metabolic stress from flight but since then has gotten so efficient that most bacteria/virus can't bypass it.

[@keithyaj2095]

Sounds about right lol

[@JenSalvatore21]

Look, us academics all know those papers get a little tedious. I appreciate an interlude of a turtle battle!!

[@pineapplepotato6985]

I’m so glad I’m a historian, instead of going through tedious medical research papers, I get to sift through tedious tax and census data and maybe even some random inconsequential letters between people that have been long forgotten by time!

[@aldenconsolver3428]

Right - after enough 40 page papers with an average syllable count of greater than 3 you have gotta have some kind of break. Without a few turtles in your life by page 30 you can not even keep track of which paragraph your in. ALL HAIL TURTLES or ugly parasitic worms or - whatever breaks it up and lets the brain defog itself.

[@Myself0094]

Interesting enough in Russia phages are quite often used for curing pregnant women in child birth clinics as safe alternatives for antibiotics without any complications. There are preproduced cocktails of strains for many types of bacteria there - streptococcus, staphylococcus, even a supercoktails against intestine or std infections. And it works pretty well. I’m glad to know phage treatment idea becomes more popular.

[@tabeechey]

There is super weird cold war politics at work here. The West rejected phage therapy in part due to its use in Soviet Russia and Georgia. It was a very absurd reason to just ignore a promising are of medicine!

[@hmu958]

Phage therapy was rejected in the west due to easy access to antibiotics. Embargos made antibiotics scarce in USSR. And even though scarce, ORSA, VRSA and MRSA resistant bacteria still showed up. Their phage program could eliminate the resistant bugs ad well as the more common ones. They could even culture phages from a patients own biome too.

[@vladimirseven777]

Probably it is not profitable enough and curing someone once and for all is bad idea leaving corporations without stable profit. Patient should suffer until he die and feeling slight relief after buying miracle drug from beloved corporation to keep them happy for several more days to buy another portion. Subscription based therapy suppose to be next step in medicine. Story about soviet medicine reminds me stories about mustard plaster that used in US as pointless plaster without any results or brilliant green that is yet another dye.

[@mwolkove]

My takeaway from this: scientists want to create nanobots to heal people, but we already have them.

[@hedgehog3180]

The idea of nanobots is really funny if you learn about microbiology because nanobots already exist! They're just living cells and viruses, we just don't ever appreciate how insanely cool they are. Like your immune system isn't some boring passive thing, it's literally an army of nanobots fanatically dedicated to protecting your life, so much so that they will and often do kill themselves.

[@capt.bart.roberts4975]

There may not be a capitalistic model for Phage Therapy. There certainly is a Public Health model for their use.

[@mamasimmerplays4702]

This. It's perfectly suited to a public health model of care. Particularly a specialist hospital for multi-resistant or otherwise intractable infections where phage treatments would be custom prepared on site for inpatients. Come in with something like that man's ankle, go out healed.

[@SirBojo4]

Communism 100 million death

[@geordannicholson2854]

​@@mamasimmerplays4702 I'm imagining a public hospital with a library of phages in the basement and librarians coming around breeding the depleted stock 🤩

[@Psychopatz]

So this might explains why some of the springs or even a well has some sort of healing properties in some folklores. They are literally teaming with bacteriophagies

[@ohhowfuckingoriginal]

Not likely. It's usually the high mineral content of springs that is healing.

[@Psychopatz]

@@ohhowfuckingoriginal Also like that sir, indeed minerals from water makes you healthier but I was referring to what my grandma's story that says back then, when dysentery outbreak was prevalent, they once drank from a specific well that does heals you like a miracle and I also heard that to not to boil it as its magic will be lost. Sorry, I'm not a native English speaker.

[@kenofken9458]

It's entirely possible. It's foolish to suppose all such legends were simply based on placebo effect or superstition.

[@EcclesiastesLiker-py5ts]

Proof that folk traditions often have some basis in empirical, but irrational, reason. Though not all, Hindus putting cow feces in wells is definitely a bad idea.

[@silverhawkscape2677]

​@@Psychopatz Sounds a lot like the story the River Ganges as well.

[@aidanclarke6106]

"Be patient" I don't want to be a patient 😅

[@ninadgadre3934]

Putting a little Indian context here, there is a long held Indian belief that waters of the Ganga have healing properties. There’s mythological reasons for this, Ganga being the biggest river systems in the region and being a literal mythological Goddess eminating from the matted locks of Shiva from up the Himalayas. But I can’t help but wonder if there were observational anecdotal accounts over the centuries that solidified the belief in the magical healing properties of the waters.

[@dejeies6719]

A shame, considering how incredibly polluted it since became.

[@Meowface.]

During Covid I remember seeing video of Indians bathing in cow feces, believing that had healthy properties 🙄

[@bienenfreund1085]

I would bet there is an abundant and varied collection of phages in the Ganga ! I remember my Dad visiting Varanasi with me and he had brought from Canada a badly infected thumb which upon immersing it in the Ganga , cleared completely the next day 😃

[@silverhawkscape2677]

And now you know. It's still a Miracle the River harbored Bacteriophages in Abundance

[@briandbeaudin9166]

Humans throughout history have explained things with myth and religion. Truly sad. Once you decide something happens due to divine intervention, you no longer have any reason to investigate more deeply. Thus, your cultures scientific knowledge will never progress, or at best, progress very slowly, especially when the relevant religions persecute the individuals questioning the religious dogma!

[@user-co8vc5nd7l]

Antibiotics vs Bacteriophage is such an awesome example of why (for many reasons) collaboration is our collective key to success. imagine if the west and east had followed the science and the knowledge together. You know, instead of playing the game of whos got the bigger nuke

[@agsystems8220]

If they were collaborating then the West would have helped them expand antibiotics production and phages would have fallen at the wayside there too. If you want to nurture multiple solutions they often need to be kept isolated to prevent one winning everywhere.

[@itsgonnabeokai]

​@@agsystems8220 so capitalism is what prevents innovation

[@boulderbash19700209]

​@@itsgonnabeokaiIt was competitiveness that pushed advance in science. If there were no adversity, the funding would be reduced and everyone involved would become complacent. And competition is the engine of capitalism.

[@redstonewarrior0152]

​@@boulderbash19700209 Competition also happens to be the engine of people so we really wouldn't be getting anything done if we had no reason to compete.

[@plm569]

​@@itsgonnabeokaithat's a pretty ignorant conclusion but go off.

[@sr80090]

As someone who is not supposed to take antibiotics for medical reasons, bacteriophages as treatment really excite me. I had to research them freshman year of undergrad, I watched a talk and the ones the presenter (Paul Turner, PhD) was discussing were really interesting. When applied to the target (antibiotic resistant) bacteria, they either killed them successfully or the bacteria developed resistance to the bacteriophages *and lost their antibiotic resistance*, in which case antibiotics could be used to kill them!

[@thebets457]

Why you dont have a million subscribers yet is beyond me, I am not in the medical field at all and yet I find your videos fascinating and informative. Thanks for the great content.

[@jayfrank1913]

These videos should be required watching for people in health care. I've mentioned things I've learned from Patrick to my doctors and usually get a blank stare. This is probably because they are overworked and don't have time for pedantic discussions, but I can't help myself. 😅

[@BuddyLee23]

The general public gravitates ever more toward ‘shorts’ and TikTok nonsense. These longer form videos of what many would consider a fairly dry subject matter (as good as the host does at making it interesting) are going to be too much for a great many viewers. That, is why he doesn’t have 1m subscribers (or, more optimistically, at least yet).

[@jamie_alexander]

This is really interesting as someone who is currently trying to find new bacteriophages. I'm part of a research group in my college looking for phages in water sources, and I haven't been successful with my water sample but some others in the group have found evidence of phage activity.

[@hmu958]

The Russian pioneers of phage therapy during the cold war got many phage lines from hospital sewers.

[@redhammer5783]

What diffrent water sources have you checked so far?

[@bloomtom]

I seriously appreciate the "D'Herelle Went Down to Georgia" gag. Generally amazing video as always Patrick!

[@PatKellyTeaches]

Thought it might be too much of a stretch. Glad it landed 🤠

[@robertmullin7884]

Now I can’t get that song out of my head!

[@crystalclearstudio1]

I think AI actually may have some amount of use in this, simulating the interactions between bacteria and phages, even designing those custom phages for bacteria we have alot of data on. If used right, it could effectively eliminate that issue.

[@itbird180]

There's a lot of great applications for AI all over medical research!

[@user-ko4zp1wm2i]

You are scratching the Surface, AI will revolutionise Medicine.

[@NickHammer99]

Your antibiotic series deserves an award. Ive rewatched every episode multiple times

[@PatKellyTeaches]

That means a ton, thank you!

[@EcclesiastesLiker-py5ts]

The Pioneer of phage therapy ignoring good science because of personal beef and having his lab taken away despite genuine innovation is excellent proof of how science is easily corrupted by human pettiness. I wonder what instances of these problems we have but don't know about today.

[@paulohagan3309]

Oh man, reminds me of the tragic stories of Dr Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis and Henri Dunant {social medical advances founding the Red Cross, not medicine specifically. Look their stories up if you haven't already.

[@quinn2014]

My friend with cystic fibrosis is getting bacteriophages for her because she has treatment refractory burkholderia cepacia in her lungs and its her last options. The technology is super cool.

[@siberx4]

I think there's huge potential in bacteriophage therapy in the coming decades. The specificity was previously a major downside when it was difficult to determine exactly what was making somebody sick, but it's a tractable problem these days to perform fast-turnaround cultures and automated tests (including RNA/DNA testing to identify specific strains) to figure out what pathogen is in somebody and select an appropriate treatment from a prepared library. The technology for this simply didn't exist decades ago, so antibiotics won out. Nowadays, the selectivity of bacteriophages means they'd be well-tolerated and would be much less likely to wreak havoc on the rest of the microbiome when administered. Since bacteriophages can also evolve alongside their bacterial hosts (unlike antibiotics), there's more of a chance of keeping ahead of resistance, too.

[@Merrsharr]

I wonder, if given a large enough library of bacterial DNA/RNA samples and corresponding phage-DNA, possibly an AI model could predict the genetic makeup of a phage that is effective against bacteria with no known phage, enabling scientists to synthesize the phage in question. Once that model is sufficiently trained, it might even be able to design phages that are effective against multiple different bacteria while still remaining harmless to humans.

[@kenofken9458]

I've been hearing about how phage therapy is just over the horizon for about 30 years now. The Soviets were doing it since at least the 1960s I believe.

[@PatKellyTeaches]

Since the 1920s, actually! I cover that about midway through the video

[@richardkohlhof]

Thank you I've been preaching this for over a decade but people think I'm just crazy because I'm not an actual doctor thank you for promoting this type of therapy

[@nikevisor54]

Stoked to see your stuff in my feed, Pat

[@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648]

Now could we make bacteria that go after viruses, instead of vice versa?

[@ThunderBird80085]

I'm all for bacteriophages and have been telling people about them since I learned about them. It'd be great if a lot of research got put into the US for them.

[@ncopp4358]

It was what I wanted to do throughout high school. However, the research is no where near FDA Approved. Now im in engineering.

[@itsapersonn]

This channel got me into pharmacy and medical history. I can't wait to see more videos come out.

[@PatKellyTeaches]

That means a lot, thank you. More coming soon

[@henk-3098]

It makes me calm realising that we can always switch to phages if antibiotic resistance becomes too significant. It would mean that the doom scenario of widespread untreatable infections because of antibiotic resistance would be far less likely.

[@dr.michaellittle5611]

Phages will never be a first line treatment for infections, but rather a last resort, for the reasons noted here. Those reasons include because the immunogenicity will cause antibody elicitation and clearance of the phage, the economic model (pharma doesn’t even invest in new antibiotic development due to market pricing, and the large numbers of phages needed to cover all bacterial pathogens. But another major reason is that one would need a bacterial identification using instrumented or other diagnostics before use. This is needed due to the specificity of phages. This usually requires 1-2 days or more since bacterial culture is required. Therefore, one could not immediately treat an infection empirically, as is done today with broad spectrum antibiotics. This delay could have a significant impact to patient morbidity and mortality.

[@TheGoldfishArmy]

Bacteriophages are seriously some of the coolest viruses, both apprarance-wise and in terms of how they infect ONLY BACTERIA. They're just so cool and fascinating and it's amazing that we can use them in medicine. edit: I accidentally wrote that they infected viruses

[@xMorogothx]

They only affect bacteria*

[@TheGoldfishArmy]

@@xMorogothx Thanks for correcting me. I spent a lot of time learning about those little guys in high school so you'd think I'd remember their namesake 😅

[@KevinButler55]

29:31 YESSSS This is the wordplay I crave from this channel 😂 Another excellent video!

[@AkaiAzul]

Sometimes it helps to confer the idea of bacteriohage to patients in a way that'd make them more receptive to it. What do people think of telling patients that you'd be receiving "a spy germ that kills the deadlier bacteria inside you"?

[@silverecco]

I like that pitch. It can also "feed" and replicate only on the target bacteria. Given the story about the Ganges water, I'm sure we have all been exposed to thousands of them. I sent a friend the video before watching with the comment "no thanks I'll just die," and I feel completely differently 30 minutes later, a testament to its quality. We hear enough about gut flora now that it should be clear some bacteria are beneficial. Why not viruses, too? Hopefully a little education is all it will take, but who knows with the amount of institutional distrust these days? "Don't need some commie tower spider virus just hit him with more Zithromax!"

[@realenew]

pretty sure when antibiotics fail to heal them, they would try almost anything anyway

[@hedgehog3180]

Kurzgesagt did it in a pretty nice way by just never linking the word virus and bacteriophage together.

[@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648]

Until we can find or make phages of viruses, there couldn't be an influenza-phage or a common cold-phage. Or a COVID-phage. However superbacteria-phages sound like a thrillingly promising use.

[@RickshawWatcher]

Always a bigger fish.

[@hedgehog3180]

I think he meant a phage based on the influenza virus? But yeah I was a bit confused too.

[@capt.bart.roberts4975]

The last I heard of this the Communist Russia was doing interesting research on it. That was back in the eighties when it had relevance in my job in public health.

[@MegaAadhar]

it's insane to me that your channel is still (relativley) small. The quality of your content is sublime, Patrick! You're doing an awesome job.

[@Pianotech520]

I’d love to see a video on peptide therapies! Specifically those used for psychiatric conditions like Selank and Semax have caught my attention recently, though they have uses outside of psychiatry. Your videos are wonderfully researched and presented in a manner that is easy to understand and still conveys the entire concept, and I think peptides are a subject your style will excel at presenting.

[@daffyduck1486]

Thanks Patrick, This is a big story that needs to be widely known

[@sahhaf1234]

Dear Patrick, thank you very much again. I think the long-span multi-episode videos, like you have done for antibiotics and alternatives, are way more interesting than single-shot ones.. I wish you also do long series of videos on other branches of pharmacology, like gastrointestinal or heart medicine...

[@PatKellyTeaches]

Or maybe a series on Insulin… 😎

[@sahhaf1234]

@@PatKellyTeaches The only problem with insulin is that its story is comparatively well-known.. Otherwise it will make a great video..

[@hedgehog3180]

@@sahhaf1234 You'd probably be surprised at how much more the story actually involves. Insulin plays a major role in your basic metabolism and it turns out that researching that has yielded a much better understanding of public health in general and rewrote a lot of the science around obesity.

[@christopherleubner6633]

The space rocket shaped one is the T4 bacteriophage. They are very good for calibrating the dosing of osmium tetroxide for electron microscopy contrast enhancements of biological samples.

[@1147cc]

My wife has CF and we almost went to Georgia for treatment nearly 7 years ago.

[@deshazo_henry]

I've seen a couple KZbin videos on bacteriophage over the years but one mainstream documentary of a patient actually using the therapy as their last hope and recovering.

[@silverhawkscape2677]

Thanks. This is Perfect for my Story set in Edwardian London before Penicillin was invented and had to look for an Alternative for my MC who gets sick following a Ferocious fight in the Sewers.

[@mariekatherine5238]

I read about phages in a galley I found in a 99 c. book bin at the Strand Bookstore in NYC. I’m going to guess this was somewhere around 1992-1994. It was in reference to several “untreatable” infections in Romanian institutions. I no longer have the galley or even remember the proposed name of the book.

[@HGhellbentALAN]

This was a very informative video, I was aware of the bacteriophage therapy being a thing but I assumed it was a brand new concept, not going back 100 years!

[@jvillanueva7707]

I remember being a biology major around '99-2000 at home watching a Discovery channel special about the Tblisi Institute Phage Library and concern of it being lost forever to deterioration because of conflict in the area. It also showed how they would harvest the sewer water near the place as part of the process to cultivate bacteriophages.

[@paigevanpelt1967]

I would love to get an understanding of how gut viruses fit into the microbiome. Your presentation moves at a lively clip, yet I don't feel firehosed after watching for the first time. Thank you for this 💙

[@hedgehog3180]

I wonder if there's such a thing as a human mutualistic virus, we know that mutualistic viruses are a thing as mutualistic retroviruses have been found in paristic wasps so the possibility is there.

[@ericjones8290]

thank you for making me interested in medical history.

[@theconqueringram5295]

I wish this video came out when I was a teenager. Back then I was obsessed with viruses, so the idea of phage therapy appeals to me even though there are some potential risks.

[@angelikalindenau943]

You put my nose on a gap in my knowledge. All the more perplexing as I have been taking tablets called ......phage for some time and often wondered what that part means. I sure didn't have the spare capacity of even looking it up amongst my attempts to recover from surgery followed by a range of strange things (conditions?). Now you have shown me a starting point I can pursue. Thanks!

[@EXiLExJD]

Another great video, this channel deserves way more subs.

[@ger5956]

Surely the specificity of phages is a good thing? Isn’t the lack of specificity part of the problem with antibiotics? 🤔

[@EXiLExJD]

The specificity comes with positives and negatives.

[@rasmushopland5001]

The good thing as far as I understand it, is that when bacteria build resistance to antibiotics, they get more vulnerable to phages. And when they build resistance to phages, they tend to lose the antibiotic-resistance. If further studies prove that to be true and it can become affordable, we can rotate between antibiotics and phages when resistance becomes and issue.

[@dr.michaellittle5611]

No, it’s not a problem per se. The ability to treat many different kinds of infections with a single antibiotic is a manufacturing and cost advantage. Imagine having to stock thousands of different antibiotics on the chance you would need to use any one of them.

[@EcclesiastesLiker-py5ts]

Yes, I've been waiting for this!

[@robinettebroadhead7677]

I didn't even know this kind of treatment was researched in my part of the world! That's so cool

[@TheGbelcher]

I love that you announced the key research questions up front. I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t do that.

[@dann5480]

I was waiting for this video. Great series Patrick!

[@jayfrank1913]

I love your videos, especially when things you mention line up with what I've recently read about the Pasteur Institute. Thanks for another great one.

[@soumyabratachakraborty7283]

I am really liking the chronology of the videos which you are putting out. Great as always.

[@simonbastrup486]

This series has been so good! I hope you find a good topic to do another series about next!

[@tryhardundefetead8006]

Discovered your channel today during school, and i can't stop watching. Thank you

[@rgoodwinau]

That was an awesome educational summary of the history of phages. I first heard of them some 2 decades ago from my medical friends in Sydney. I'm fascinated by how two different systems can develop two completely different approaches to bacterial control.

[@CapPotato388]

Love how the sci-fi cliché of mad scientists testing things on themselves is based in reality...

[@stevengill1736]

Fascinating, thank you kindly for the video! Boy, those were the days of personal experimentation....

[@MoonJarGirl1]

@PatKellyTeaches This os amazing! I have been looking forward to this video! Thank you for all the effort and thpught you put into each episode. You really are a shining light of knowledge while in a dark place of ignorance!

[@PatKellyTeaches]

Glad things finally came together! It was a fascinating one to research

[@patrickrose8325]

what a great series, keep up the amazing work

[@audreybrown1859]

I love your videos! It helps me apply what I’m learning in microbiology and Chemistry to modern science. Keep up the brilliant work!

[@freyashipley6556]

Fascinating! You're a great presenter, Patrick!

[@davidsmookler9730]

What a great talk! I read Arrowsmith 25 years ago and wondered ever since what to phage therapy. So well done sir!

[@user-pm1ry7hc2e]

29:31 YESSSS This is the wordplay I crave from this channel Another excellent video!

[@AnarchoCatBoyEthan]

Great video! This whole series has been great. Also Bacteriophages are awesome and they are my friend.

[@helmutzollner5496]

Excellent summary of the history of Phagetherapy. I hear you saying the Antibiotics are a Western and Phages a Soviet thing. However, according to what I had read is that Phafevrherapy is still used in France at the Foreign Legion. Have no way to confirm that.

[@Apexbreakdowns]

Top notch videos as always!

[@romelegionmaker8625]

Why does this only have 48 views 😯

[@PatKellyTeaches]

Because you found it before I made it public 🤫

[@Psychopatz]

lucky guy lmao

[@purpleheart3431]

This is so fascinating!!!

[@BillAngelos]

Great video on a topic that should really be covered more.

[@PatKellyTeaches]

Agreed. There are tons of videos and articles about antimicrobial resistance, but it feels like very few about phages

[@panther105]

You had me at "turtles"..!!

[@DavidMahler-yv1xq]

This is such an incredible video. Thank you.

[@oska0790]

i love these videos!! keep it up!

[@hashille6381]

Hey just wanted to let yo know that as a medical student you have the best non-teaching focused medical content on youtube in my opinion. Thanks a lot for these videos and if any of you know other creators that do medical content in a very digestible (while running or cooking) way I would love to hear it!

[@PatKellyTeaches]

That means a ton, thank you. Medlife Crisis is my favorite!

[@hashille6381]

I just sent you an email with a proposal, I would love to help you with your project:) and medlife crisis is great, love the british acid humor! @@PatKellyTeaches

[@hashille6381]

Dear Patrick, have you had a chance to look at the email I sent you?

[@paurushbhatnagar8100]

Alas Soviets lost another scientist to dogma

[@EcclesiastesLiker-py5ts]

All too common. They did much the same thing to the people who promoted breeding better strains of food crops, because genetics is a fascist science, according to the politicians.

[@AsrarMyst]

Interesting video, keep up the work!

[@ekwah5821]

My partner had CF, and she died from complications caused by chronic bacterial lung infections several years ago at age 30. Previously, the toxicity of the antibiotics she'd been treated with damaged her inner ears, causing balance issues, and the bacteria had become resistent to them as well. Not long before she died, I came across bacteriophage therapy while researching potential solutions, and was planning to speak with her doctor about gathering a sample to send to a phage therapy center in Georgia where they develop custom phage cocktails to treat such cases, but during a routine hospital visit, she got pneumonia, and passed away after about two weeks in the ICU. It was a very painful and frustrating time. I really hope more phage therapy research takes place in the U.S. soon, and it can be approved by the FDA, so that the lives of people with CF, and others who become infected with antibiotic resistent bacteria can be saved. PS. The lung infection didn't cause her death directly. In the ICU, she was in an induced coma, hooked to a breathing machine and a dialysis machine while being pumped full of antibiotics. The dialysis machine was cleaning the toxins, largely caused by the antibiotics, from her blood continuously. It was too much for her heart to take after a while, so it stopped beating. The buildup of toxicity and damage that can be caused by the long-term use of certain antibiotics is yet another reason to find alternatives. Some people also have allergic reactions to the only antibiotics that can treat their infections as well, so to me, it's imperitive that alternatives like phages are vetted for safety and brought to market in the U.S. as quickly as possible.

[@yoshiyahfleet]

These videos are great!!! Excellent delivery and very educational. Amazing visuals

[@greatwhale6476]

I'm an engineering student, but I've been finding myself watching all of your videos because they're so interesting! Great videos.

[@zhubajie6940]

I knew the Soviets were big into phage therapy but I am happy you provided details of the history of the research, the details are fascinating.

[@RayOpp1]

Wow, just wow the information in your videos is so rich and educational. Thanks for all your inquisitive endeavors. I really enjoy learning something new every day and your videos are definitely a source of that quest for knowledge.

[@HughGrekshin88]

My mom and I love your channel! Very thorough deep dives. - Jeff H

[@petercombs4119]

This is really well told story of the history of bacteriaphages. Incredibly interesting and Kelly's enthusiasm for his topic is "infectious"

[@mysticthecatninja]

I've never even heard of this thanks for the video

[@RiseUp_Again]

Wow, That's a Lot of Information, Thank You

[@Hippiechick11]

This is fascinating.

[@stormbytes]

Wow... SUPER interesting presentation! thank you

[@jamesgornall5731]

I saw a programme on the BBC about this subject around 25 years ago when I was 15, fascinating stuff

[@Reverend_Salem]

The thing im most excited with Phages isnt their use against bacterial infections, but the potential for using Virophages/microphages against viral diseases, especially HIV, HPV, or Rabies.

[@kwesikwansakennedy2196]

Taking me back to first year of medical school with this video 😂 Nice video, Mr Kelly!

[@williesnyder2899]

Fighting off river tortoises to “get at” floating partially-cremated human bodies, and determining the etiology of the odd “chunky bits.” Not to mention the “locust diarrhea…” SCIENCE!! Gotta Love It!!

[@MDrepairsLLC]

Awesome video! Subscribed

[@PatKellyTeaches]

Thanks for the kind words!

[@bradfjord]

Love at first sight when I first saw a bacteriophage as a kid. They're little robots, perhaps doodads.

[@bradfjord]

I saw a diagram of a bacteriophage. My eyesight isn't that good.

[@PatKellyTeaches]

Hahahaha, was gonna say, you've got some 2,000,000/20 vision!

[@rubensfilho9774]

Your videos remind me of biology class in high school

[@DanielinLaTuna]

An interesting side note about viruses and animal genomes - some DNA sequences are viral inclusions that were inserted eons ago, coding for beneficial mutations. Viruses can act as splicing machines, and are proving quite effective in molecular biology in GMO research and development.

[@hedgehog3180]

The guy who runs the channel Thought Emporium used gentically engineered viruses to cure his lactose intolerance.

[@Srulio]

There is a fine American novel, Arrowsmith written by Sinclair Lewis published in 1926. IMHO you and your viewers would appreciate this work because it is all about phages for medical applications.

[@akankshaaggarwal394]

A highly informative and incredible video. The explanations were clear and concise. I loved the content, and the outline was perfect, relating the discovery of phages to their use in current healthcare systems worldwide.

[@NoahKuzel]

I have found the use of phages interesting because on one hand why not have viruses that are programmed to eliminate CoVid-19 or influenza? However you introduce this virus to your body, it does its' job, and then what? Where does the virus go? Does your immune system get rid of it? Do they just sit in your body dormant until your viral load gets rediculously high?

[@lunkel8108]

You can't use phages for Covid or influenza because those are caused by viruses themselves. Phages infect bacteria, not other viruses. Once all of its targets are gone, the phage can't replicate anymore. Viruses need to infect cells, they don't have any metabolism on their own. They also can't hide in a dormant state (the lysogenic cycle mentioned in the video) in any of your cells because they don't infect them. So yeah, your body would get rid of them.

[@hedgehog3180]

Phages can't really target other viruses. And yes your immune system is also on garbage collection duty so it would clear out any foreign biological material over time.

[@Usercreatedname]

Phage therapy has always been a interesting topic and its really cool for you to mention Tom Patterson. My current workplace the Center for Phage Technology was one of the leading organizations in isolating phage samples that were sensitive to his A. baumanii strain (TP1). I think it would have been helpful to mention some of the other points that makes phage therapy so difficult to use,. FDA requires that all phage cocktails need to be under a certain endotoxin level, which requires long stretches of time to purify phage post-propagation. Additionally, no phage can ever be administered without the use of antibiotics. That's how we get all these interesting data points about the synergistic and the antagonistic dynamic between phage and antimicrobials. I know in the video that you mentioned that resistance to phage can actually lead to antibiotic sensitivity, but there are also many cases where certain cationic antimicrobials actually cause problems with phage infection. Additionally, it would have been nice if you could have touched more on the topic of immunogenicity of phage because even if you inject phage into a patient to treat superbugs, eventually the phage will stop being effective not because of bacterial resistance but because of the human immune response. Human antibodies will eventually be raised to neutralize the phage, rendering them unable to stop the spread of bacterial infections. Thus, phage people have been trying to deal with this problem to make phage as a therapeutic more effective.