Hello, I think there is a strong possibility however there are many hurdles that must be overcome. Phage therapy is highly specific depending on the strain of the bacteria and the patient, because of this it can take a lot of time, effort, and money to develop a phage cocktail to treat someone. We also don’t know all the effects of phage therapy. When phage lyse a cell they release toxins which in high amounts an be harmful to the patient. Additionally we don’t know how each persons immune system will respond to the phage therapy. Out immune system can recognize phage as a foreign body and therefore as a threat.
Hello! So lytic phage are used in phage therapy because they lyse bacterial cells. Temperate phages can be used to detect bacteria that the phage can infect. However, because temperate phage aren’t always guaranteed to lyse the cell they are not as effective in phage therapy.
This is such a good presentation. Everything is explained clearly and it was very engaging. My question is for the future directions ‘Mutation of phage could increase the range of what phage therapy is capable of treating’ what range are you talking about in specifics? Just bacteria and the mutations or something more?
Thank you so much! Yes so a mutation in phage could affect what bacteria it can and cannot affect. If we were able to make it so that phage could infect a range of bacteria rather than specific strains, then it would make phage therapy a lot more feasible.
Well done presentation; great pacing and tone. You mentioned that for a potential future direction you would like to compare the DNA from your phage to other phage to see how it evolves, how would you go about getting the DNA and analyzing it?
Thank you! Yes, we had already isolated Potsticker’s DNA. But phage DNA can be sent to be sequenced so we would have Potsticker’s DNA sequence and then compare the sequenced DNA to a similar phage that had already been sequenced.
curesymposium.org 
Do you think we will see phage therapy become more widely used in medical treatment?
LikeLike
Hello, I think there is a strong possibility however there are many hurdles that must be overcome. Phage therapy is highly specific depending on the strain of the bacteria and the patient, because of this it can take a lot of time, effort, and money to develop a phage cocktail to treat someone. We also don’t know all the effects of phage therapy. When phage lyse a cell they release toxins which in high amounts an be harmful to the patient. Additionally we don’t know how each persons immune system will respond to the phage therapy. Out immune system can recognize phage as a foreign body and therefore as a threat.
LikeLike
What’s the difference between temperate and lytic phage in terms of using it for medical purposes?
LikeLike
Hello! So lytic phage are used in phage therapy because they lyse bacterial cells. Temperate phages can be used to detect bacteria that the phage can infect. However, because temperate phage aren’t always guaranteed to lyse the cell they are not as effective in phage therapy.
LikeLike
This is such a good presentation. Everything is explained clearly and it was very engaging. My question is for the future directions ‘Mutation of phage could increase the range of what phage therapy is capable of treating’ what range are you talking about in specifics? Just bacteria and the mutations or something more?
LikeLike
Thank you so much! Yes so a mutation in phage could affect what bacteria it can and cannot affect. If we were able to make it so that phage could infect a range of bacteria rather than specific strains, then it would make phage therapy a lot more feasible.
LikeLike
Well done presentation; great pacing and tone. You mentioned that for a potential future direction you would like to compare the DNA from your phage to other phage to see how it evolves, how would you go about getting the DNA and analyzing it?
LikeLike
Thank you! Yes, we had already isolated Potsticker’s DNA. But phage DNA can be sent to be sequenced so we would have Potsticker’s DNA sequence and then compare the sequenced DNA to a similar phage that had already been sequenced.
LikeLike