Andrzej Górski
Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
The Medical University of Warsaw, Poland
Title: Bacteriophage therapy of antibiotic-resistant infections
Biography
Biography: Andrzej Górski
Abstract
Experts, international organizations and reputed biomedical journals warn that the greatest risk to human health comes in the form of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. World Health Organizaton declared that the “post-antibiotic age” is on the horizon while UK chief medical officer recently pointed out that antimicrobial resistance rnpresents a threat as grave as climate change. There has been a growing search for rnalternative remedies and bacteriophages (phages) have been in the center of interest.rnFurthermore, a recently published pipeline portfolio review has identified wild phages among leading prioritized alternative approaches (The Lancet Infect Dis, Jan 2016). In 2005 the first center of phage therapy in the European Union was established at our Institute which has been treating patients with a wide range of bacterial infections resistant to antibiotics therapy. Our data suggest that phage therapy can achieve good results in a significant cohort of patients with untreatable infections and is well tolerated. Phage administration may affect patients’ immunity but its alterations are unlikely to mediate the effects observed. Although phage may elicit antibodies that can neutralize phage antibacterial activity in vitro there appears no correlation between antibody responses and the clinical outcome of phage therapy.