Viruses as Medicine

Working on a new book about antibiotic resistance and the search for solutions to it, Rinke van den Brink noticed that scientific interest in the medical application of bacteriophages is growing rapidly. He decided to devote a book to that development.

Bacteriophages or phages are small viruses that can kill bacteria. Not every bacterium, but very specifically the bacterium or its subtype to which they fit evolutionarily. Since the beginning of life on Earth, bacteria and bacteriophages have been in a race with each other. The phages attempt to kill the bacteria, the bacteria attempt to make themselves resistant to the phages which in turn attempt to bypass the bacterial defense mechanisms.

In the late 19th century, the beneficial effect of what some twenty years later came to be called bacteriophages was first noted, and which still more than twenty years later were only found to be small viruses. Bacteriophages were making inroads in Eastern European countries, particularly Georgia and Russia, then both part of the Soviet Union. Many important scientists researching phages did not survive the terror of Stalin and Beria, the chief of his secret service.

In World War II, bacteriophages were of great interest to the Red Army, which lacked penicillin. In the West, interest in them largely died out with the development of penicillin and later many other antibiotics. The Cold War was no stranger to this either. Only in this century, the few perseverers of the post-war era got driven successors who put bacteriophages and their medical application back on the map. Belgian doctors and researchers have played and continue to play a leading role in this effort.

From Tuesday, September 10 2024, the book Virussen als medicijn. Bacteriofagen als wapen tegen infecties en antibioticaresistentie by Rinke van den Brink will be in bookstores. 

More info: singeluitgeversijen.nl