Findings from\u00a0VICPhage\u2019s\u00a0first patient\u00a0have been published in leading\u00a0medical\u00a0science journal\u00a0Nature\u00a0Medicine,\u00a0advancing\u00a0phage-based therapeutics\u00a0worldwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A clinical partnership between The Alfred and Monash University,\u00a0VICPhage\u00a0is one of the first programs\u00a0in Australia to offer end-to-end capacity in phage therapy to treat\u00a0patients with severe infections that do not respond to traditional antibiotics.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Phage therapy involves injecting a patient with viruses called bacteriophages (or\u00a0phages\u00a0for short)\u00a0to kill bacterial infections that have not responded to other treatments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
VICPhage\u00a0Co-Lead, senior author of the paper and The Alfred\u2019s Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases Professor Anton Peleg said\u00a0the\u00a0new\u00a0findings have\u00a0broad application across\u00a0therapeutics,\u00a0clinical\u00a0trials\u00a0and research.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe evidence\u00a0we\u00a0gathered and published in\u00a0Nature\u00a0Medicine\u00a0allows us to have a better understanding of what really goes on in the body of a patient when we treat them with phage therapy,\u201d Prof Peleg said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBy fully understanding\u00a0the complex interactions between the\u00a0patients\u00a0immune system, the bacteria and the phage, we can better adapt\u00a0phages\u00a0to treat infections\u00a0more effectively.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Prior to administering phage therapy,\u00a0Prof. Peleg\u00a0is required to\u00a0obtain Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approval for compassionate use, which includes exhausting all traditional antibiotic treatment options, and\u00a0that\u00a0the infection poses a serious threat to life,\u00a0limb\u00a0or function.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The new paper published in\u00a0Nature Medicine\u00a0details\u00a0VICPhage\u2019s\u00a0first patient case in 2022,\u00a0also\u00a0the first ever in Victoria. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The patient was a 22-year-old\u00a0man\u00a0with cystic fibrosis who had severe, recurrent infections\u00a0with\u00a0bacteria\u00a0that had become resistant to\u00a0almost all\u00a0available antibiotics.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr Fernando Gordillo-Altamirano, a postdoctoral researcher in the\u00a0VICPhage\u00a0Laboratory in the Department of Infectious Diseases at The Alfred, and first author of the paper\u00a0said the case provided two\u00a0findings that will\u00a0benefit\u00a0future phage therapy patients.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe discovered that phage therapy\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0quite\u00a0work in this patient because he had pre-existing antibodies against the phage,\u201d Dr Gordillo-Altamirano said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese antibodies destroyed the\u00a0phages\u00a0before they could kill the\u00a0infection.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were swiftly able to\u00a0determine\u00a0how to test\u00a0subsequent\u00a0patients to see if they already have antibodies against particular\u00a0phages,\u00a0in order to\u00a0adapt our treatment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr Gordillo-Altamirano said the publication\u00a0of findings like these, when the clinical outcome for the patient was not favourable, plays\u00a0a crucial role in countering publication bias, a phenomenon\u00a0present in medical research.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMedicine advances when we deeply understand why some cases may not go according to plan, and we share that knowledge with our colleagues,\u201d Dr Gordillo-Altamirano said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Prof Peleg\u00a0said the findings\u00a0will help with the\u00a0selection\u00a0of optimised\u00a0phages\u00a0for treatment of future patients.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe now recognise the importance of evaluating\u00a0phages\u00a0for their ability to withstand neutralising antibodies from the\u00a0patients\u00a0immune system,\u201d\u00a0Prof Peleg said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo\u00a0if we\u00a0identify several\u00a0phages\u00a0that are active against the target bacteria, we can then test them and select those that demonstrate the greatest resilience.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
As phage therapy advances to the next stage of research, Prof Peleg said the insights gained from the paper will help to inform future clinical trials. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of next steps,\u00a0what\u2019s required is a large randomised controlled trial to determine\u00a0whether\u00a0phages\u00a0are\u00a0efficacious or not, particularly against a placebo,\u201d Prof Peleg said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe findings we published in\u00a0Nature Medicine\u00a0set us up well to do just that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Findings from\u00a0VICPhage\u2019s\u00a0first patient\u00a0have been published in leading\u00a0medical\u00a0science journal\u00a0Nature\u00a0Medicine,\u00a0advancing\u00a0phage-based therapeutics\u00a0worldwide.\u00a0 A clinical partnership between The Alfred and Monash University,\u00a0VICPhage\u00a0is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2161,17764,346172,64,63,7472,346173,137,2166,346171,337,346174],"class_list":["post-712171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-antibiotic","tag-antibiotic-resistance","tag-anton-peleg","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bacteriophage","tag-fernando-gordillo-altamirano","tag-health","tag-infectious-diseases","tag-phage","tag-research","tag-vicphage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}