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Re:'Man on the Moon' moment – the year's big breakthroughs i... by est31 on Wednesday January 01, 2020 @05:54AM (#21927564)
> But doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital attempted an untested "phage therapy", which uses viruses to infect and kill bacteria. Phage-therapy never became mainstream medicine and the field was eclipsed by the discovery of antibiotics, which are much easier to use.

Yes, phage therapy quickly disappeared after antibiotics were discovered. At the time, antibiotics were more convenient as they usually help against a wide range of bacteria while with phages you need to specifically test which phage works best for the strand you want to fight. It takes days with phages vs minutes with antibiotics.

The co-discoverer of phages went to georgia and helped establish phage research at a medical institue [1]. The institute survived through the horrible times of stalin and later it became of strategic importance as the west didn't share antibiotics with the soviet union. Due to the strategic importance, samples had to be sent to the institute from all over the soviet union and now the institute has one of the largest phage collections in the world. It has continued giving phage therapies to patients for decades, up until this day. Definitely not mainstream but don't call it untested!

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eliava_Institute

Re:'Man on the Moon' moment – the year's big breakthroughs i... by varjag on Wednesday January 01, 2020 @07:22AM (#21927761)
> The institute survived through the horrible times of stalin and later it became of strategic importance as the west didn't share antibiotics with the soviet union.

Penicillin and Streptocide were shipped to USSR under Lend-Lease in industrial quantities and saved many hundreds of thousands lives.

Re:'Man on the Moon' moment – the year's big breakthroughs i... by Retric on Wednesday January 01, 2020 @11:54AM (#21928900)
That’s true, but Lend-Lease ended well before Stalin’s death.
Re:'Man on the Moon' moment – the year's big breakthroughs i... by otabdeveloper2 on Wednesday January 01, 2020 @03:36PM (#21930439)
You're nuts if you think the USSR didn't have penicillin and other antibiotics.
Re:'Man on the Moon' moment – the year's big breakthroughs i... by Retric on Wednesday January 01, 2020 @03:46PM (#21930507)
Penicillin and plenty of others sure, but it’s a huge list and resistance has long been fought via the use of novel antibiotics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_antibiotics

USSR’s issues where generally more economic than technological. However, they did lag behind the curve in introducing new antibiotics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Soviet_Union#/m...