About fifteen years ago I was working on Mycobacterium tuberculosis and I was studying a specific Mycobacteriophage: DS6A. Before picking out this phage I had spent a lot of time for reading documents and scientific journals.
I selected this phage for its lytic power expressed on Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (M.tuberculosis, M.bovis, M.africanum, M.microti).
The lytic activity of phage DS6A is always expressed on all strains collected from any part of the world. In the meanwhile C.R.Merril and colleagues wrote a scientific paper:
“ Long-circulating bacteriophage as antibacterial agents” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, published in 1996.
After this reading I thought a potential application of phage DS6A for a peculiar pathological situation in the Man:
Multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculous meningitis and AIDS. This crazy idea was originated by one of features of Mycobacteria : the intracellular location. Mycobacteria reside in monocytes, reticuloendothelial cells and giant cells but when cause Meningitis they remain out off the cells and are available for a phage attack by intrathecal administration.
On that occasion I wrote a letter to C.R. Merril and intentionally I did not write to him my idea.
The year after my company had the financial problems and, some time later , it came to a bad end, but this is an old story.
Today Antimicrobial (Drug) Resistance is a big problem and Phage Therapy if properly works might be a valid and cheap solution to the antibiotics.
For helping a developing country I will write a project for opening a Phage Therapy Unit inside a medical center.
