The British broadcaster BBC has compiled a list of the most important medical achievements of the past year. One such breakthrough, according to BBC journalists, was bacteriophage therapy for antibiotic-resistant infections. Bacterial viruses have already saved countless lives.

A striking example of the effectiveness of phage therapy, according to the BBC, is the case of a girl with cystic fibrosis (read more here: Scientists report successful phage therapy for mycobacterial infection ). Let's briefly recap what happened*.

A fifteen-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis was diagnosed with Mycobacterium abscessus in her sputum after a lung transplant and receiving immunosuppressive and antibiotic therapy.

The pathogen proved resistant to all available antibiotics. As a result of the infection, the girl suffered liver dysfunction, an inflamed surgical wound, and mycobacterial lesions on her skin.

No medications were able to combat the M. abscessus infection, and the girl's chances of survival were minimal. But doctors didn't give up the fight: they began treatment with an experimental cocktail of three bacteriophages, specifically selected for the girl's M. abscessus strain. Two of the three viruses were genetically modified to enhance their antimicrobial potential. The treatment course lasted 32 weeks, with the girl receiving phage injections twice daily. M. abscessus disappeared from her sputum and blood after the first day of treatment. Her condition gradually improved, she began to gain weight, the surgical wound healed, her lung and liver function improved, and most of the skin lesions disappeared.

Every year, interest in bacteriophages, both among doctors and patients, is growing, as phage therapy is seen as a promising method for treating antibiotic-resistant infections, as well as a possible alternative to antibiotics for individuals who, for various reasons, cannot use them.

Among the medical events of 2019, the BBC also notes:

- A new, high-precision DNA manipulation technology, so-called prime editing, based on an improved CRISPR-Cas system and capable of correcting the vast majority of point mutations that cause 7,000 hereditary diseases.

- The introduction in the USA and Europe of a new type of anti-tumor drug (larotrectenib), which, unlike other anti-cancer drugs, is prescribed not for specific types of cancer, but for specific genetic characteristics of the tumor (tumor-agnostic therapy).

- The fastest (within one year) creation of a drug for just one patient suffering from a rare hereditary disease called Button's disease, which is characterized by severe neurodegenerative processes and usually leads to early death.

- Introduction into practice of a drug for the treatment of acute hepatic porphyria, which is based on the phenomenon of RNA interference – the switching off of a gene that is not functioning correctly by blocking protein synthesis at the translation stage.

- Clinical trials and FDA approval of a drug to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease (aducanumab). This monoclonal antibody destroys neurotoxic beta-amyloid deposits in the brain.

- Maintaining the life of neurons in the pig brain for four hours after death.

- Successful surgical separation of Siamese twins who were joined at the head.

- Creation of an exoskeleton that is controlled by consciousness and allows a paralyzed person to move (laboratory prototype).

- Restoring people's voices with a brain implant that can "read" thoughts and convert them into speech.

* Dedrick RM, Guerrero-Bustamante CA, Garlena RA et al. Engineered bacteriophages for the treatment of a patient with a disseminated drug-resistant Mycobacterium abscessus // Nature Medicine, 2019, 25: 730-733. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-019-0437-z