This May beThe Deadliest Being On Planet Earth!

Can you tell me, what is the deadliest weapon that exists on earth?  No, it's not atomic bombs. The deadliest weapons that can easily wash away millions of people from our planet are 'biological weapons'. Biological weapons include the use of biological toxins or infectious agents like bacterias, fungi, viruses, and insects to kill or incapacitate humans. And human history is proof that biological weapons have been used in several wars by different countries to win the war easily. And who knows the virus with which the whole world is suffering now, is a biological weapon from China. Well, I shall dive deeper into the topic of 'Biological Weapons' later on because my main motive to tell you about biological was to give you a little idea about how deadly micro-organisms can be and I hope you have understood.

So, coming back to our topic let's talk about the bacteriophages. Bacteriophages or phage for short is said to be the deadliest entity on our planet. A phage is a virus, not quite alive not quite dead. Their head is an icosahedron, sort of dice with 20 faces and 30 edges. The head is made up of protein which contains the genetic material. The head sits on a long tail that has leg-like fibers. And you will be shocked to know that there are more phages on earth than every other organism combined, including bacterias. They are probably present everywhere where living things exist. Billions are on your hands, eyelids, and in your intestine right now. The fact that they are present everywhere will make you nervous because they are responsible for the majority of deaths on earth. But, don't worry mate we are lucky because they only kill bacteria. Up to 40%  of all bacteria in the oceans are killed by them every single day.

Bacteriophages V/S Bacteria:

Like any other virus, the phage also requires a host to survive and reproduce. And without a host, they become non-living. They show a very interesting characteristic that, usually a phage has chosen one specific bacteria or maybe some of its close relatives on whom it attacks. Imagine a phage like a sharp-shooter or a cruise missile that only hunts and kills members of one very unlucky family. 

How does a phage kill bacteria?

When a phage finds its victim, it connects its tail fibers with receptors and uses a sort of syringe to enter its genetic material into the bacteria. In a weird motion, the phage squeezes its tail and injects its genetic information. Within a minute, the bacteria is taken over. It's now forced to manufacture all the parts of new phages. They only stop when the bacteria is filled up with brand-new phages. In the final step, they (phages present in the bacteria) produce 'endolysin'- a powerful enzyme that punches a hole in the bacteria. The pressure is so high that the bacteria sort of vomits out all of its insides and dies. The new phages are released and begin the cycle anew. 

In the last few years, bacteriophages have enjoyed the attention of the second deadliest being on earth: humans. Recently we have started looking into injecting millions of them into our bodies. In the past, a single cut or a sip from the wrong puddle could kill you. Bacteria were our phages, which means the way phages use to kill bacteria the same way, in the past bacteria used to kill us. These tiny monsters hunted mercilessly. But, then, about 100 years ago, we found a solution in nature. By accident, we found fungi that produced compounds that killed bacteria and this was named as the antibiotics. Suddenly, we had a powerful super-weapon. Antibiotics were so effective that we stopped thinking of bacterias as monsters. Only the old and the weakest among us were killed by them. We used antibiotics more and more for less and less serious causes. We lost respect for the monsters, and for our superweapon (antibiotics) even.   

 

But, we forgot that bacteria are living things that can evolve and one by one they started to become immune against our weapons. This continued until we created what is called 'superbugs', bacteria became immune to almost everything we have. This immunity is spreading across the world as we speak. And stats show that by 2050, superbugs could kill more humans a year than cancer. The days when a cut or bladder infection or a cough could kill us or our loved ones are coming back. In the US alone, more than 23,000 people die from resistant bacteria each year. But, it turns out that pages, our tiny killer virus robots, could save us. We can inject them into our bodies to help cure infections.  

Hold on, how could injecting millions of viruses into an infection be a good idea? The answer is yes, it is a good idea. Phages are very-very specialized killers of bacteria. So, specialized, in fact, that humans are completely immune to them; we are too different. We encounter billions of phages every day and we just politely ignore each other. Antibiotics are like carpet bombing, killing everything, even the good bacteria in our intestine that we don't want to harm. Phages are like guided missiles that only attack what they are supposed to. 

I am having an interesting question in my head, if we use phages to kill bacteria, won't bacteria develop ways of defending themselves? Well, they will develop ways of defending themselves from phages but, phages evolve too. There has been an arms race between them and bacteria for billions of years and so far, they are doing great. This makes phages smart weapons that are constantly getting better at killing. 

This has already been successfully tested with, who had no other hope left. The bacteria 'Pseudomonas Aeruginosa', one of the most feared bacteria, infected the man's chest cavity. This bacteria is naturally resistant to most antibiotics and can even survive an alcoholic hand gel (sanitizer). After years of suffering, a few thousand phages were directly inserted into his chest cavity together with antibiotics that the bacteria were immune to. And guess what, after a few weeks, the infection had completely disappeared. Unfortunately, this treatment is still experimental and pharma companies are still hesitant to invest the necessary billions because the treatment has no official approval yet. It might be a weird concept but injecting the deadliest being on planet Earth directly into our bodies could save millions of lives. 

Thanks for reading! I hope you learned something new from my blog, and if you really learned then share this blog.