It Takes a Bug to Kill a Bug

Some two-thirds of a century after Albert Sabin and Thomas McPherson Brown performed their pioneering studies on mice and mycoplasmas at Rockefeller Institute, a new generation of Rockefeller (now University) researchers have developed a revolutionary strategy for fighting bacterial invaders. The technique is based on co-opting a natural enzyme from the tiny viruses that live inside bacteria. Properly handled, these enzymes can target and kill disease bacteria, even those that are resistant to antibiotics. So far, these "bacteriophage" enzymes have been used to kill Streptococcus pneumoniae in the noses and throats of mice, and penicillin-resistant strains of the same bacterium in a test tube. "A nasal spray containing this enzyme would prevent infections before they start," says Vincent A. Fischetti, Ph.D., co-head of of the Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis. "We would no longer have to wait for an infection to arise in order to treat it." The new approach does not encourage immune strains of its targets, and has no observed side effects. Clinical trials are in the planning stage.