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Play chess with bacteria

The first Phage therapy treatment in Israel

Hadassah physicians and researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem used bacteriophages for the first time in Israel to treat a patient who was about to go amputation due to infection due to bacteria resistant to all antibiotics.

In recent decades, we face an alarming increase of infections by bacteria resistant to all existing antibiotics which the physicians remain helpless against them.

One of the most promising solutions to this problem is the use of bacteriophages (phages), viruses that efficiently and accurately attack only their target bacteria,

One of the most significant advantage of phages over antibiotics is that, as genetic elements, they can be modified and improved, thus even if a resistant bacterium develops, a modified phage can be used. In addition, as opposed to antibiotics, phages do not harm the "good" bacteria in our body (the microbiome).

The treatment of phages is part of the philosophy of "personalized medicine", which holds that treatment should be tailored to the patient in a personal and accurate manner.

Until recently, phages could only be treated in Eastern Europe, but now, following a number of successful treatments in the United States under Western regulation, medical authorities and research bodies around the world are very interested in this treatment.

In Israel, a team led by Prof. Ran Nir-Paz of the Infectious Diseases Department at the Hadassah-Hebrew University medical center and Dr. Ronen Hazan, a microbiologist and head of the Phage Therapy laboratory at the Hebrew University's Faculty of Dental Medicine, decided to introduce and implement the phages treatment approach here. The team also includes the Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases Prof. Alon Moses, Dr Shunit Coppenhagen-Glazer and the research students Sivan Alkalai-Oren, Liron Khalifa and Daniel Gelman.

After the team carried out extensive research in recent years that included new isolated phages and successful treatments in in vitro and in animal models, it was decided to proceed to compassionate use of phages to patients with infectious due to bacteria which are not sensitive to any antibiotics. To this end, the team consulted the American group that has treated few patients lead by Prof. Robert Schooley (UCSD), US Navy microbiologists and Adaptive Phage Therapy company. The Americans responded willingly and even produced a treatment grade phage for the first treatments.

The patient who was selected for the first treatment suffered a wound in his leg that was infected with a strain of the bacteria Acetinobacter baumani, resistant to all antibiotics, and was a candidate for leg amputation so that the bacterium would not pass to his body and endanger his life.

The patient was treated and within a few days the wound was closed and showed an impressive recovery so that the patient could stand on his feet and went home to celebrate Eid al-Fiter. Parallel to the treatments, the patient was monitored and tested for the rate of extinction of the infectious bacteria and the changes it underwent. "In the future if resistant bacteria develop," say Dr. Hazan and Prof. Nir-Paz, "we intend to develop phages that will be specifically effective against them and repeat that again and again against any new resistant emerging bacteria. And so, in an evolutionary chess game we will finally drop matte on the infectious bacteria, which is impossible in the use of conventional antibiotics. "

The treatment of phages today is a revolution and a great hope in the war of mankind in diseases caused by resistant bacteria and now Israel belongs to exclusive club of countries who apply it.

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Our collaborator, Prof. Ran Nir-Paz, Infectious diseases , Hadssah

Tarek Kashan, the first patient in Israel who was treated with phages

UPDATE!!!
So far we treated in Israel 10 patients with our phages

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