Bacteriophages are the most abundant organisms on the planet, comprising more than 70% of all the organisms on earth. The question arises - what are they?
They are essentially viruses that kill bacteria. Each ‘phage’ is specialised to attack and kill one type of bacteria. When they find their victims, they latch onto them and inject their genetic material into them, which forms many more new phages. The poor little bacteria has to now manufacture phages until the bacteria is full of them. In the final stage, the phages produce an enzyme called ‘endolysin’, which makes a hole in the host bacteria. The pressure is so high at this time, that the bacteria literally explodes like a balloon filled with too much air. The phages produced inside the bacteria are released and restart the cycle. But how are they useful to us?
Selfish yet innovative as the human race is, we want to use the bacteriophage for our own good. In the early days, if we ate the wrong fruit or drank dirty water, we would be dead before we learnt to spell bacteriophage. But in 1928, a man named Alexander Fleming discovered the holy grail, Penicillin! Well, it may not seem great to you, as these days we take antibiotics for everything, but back then, it was legendary. We were not afraid of bacteria anymore and could live our lives on the edge. But just like the Empire regrouped into the First Order after The Return of the Jedi, the bacteria would not give up. They came back with their own Starkiller Base, called Anti-Microbial Resistance. Surely, we were toast now. However, we have a new weapon. If we inject specific phages for specific bacteria, we could go back to not caring! But what if bacteria evolve resistance against phages? Well, to gain just a small amount of anti-phage resistance, they have to give up the entirety of the anti-microbial resistance! So, we could inject both phages and antibiotics into our bodies and get rid of the bacteria. It’s a super-weapon.
Now that we have got our own Rey, we can live peacefully as the phages help us. We just need to hope that this trend of the bacteria-phage things matching Star Wars movies ends at Episode 8, The Last Jedi.
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