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. 2018 Apr 5;10(4):178.
doi: 10.3390/v10040178.

Expert Opinion on Three Phage Therapy Related Topics: Bacterial Phage Resistance, Phage Training and Prophages in Bacterial Production Strains

Christine Rohde  1 , Grégory Resch  2 , Jean-Paul Pirnay  3 , Bob G Blasdel  4 , Laurent Debarbieux  5 , Daniel Gelman  6 , Andrzej Górski  7   8 , Ronen Hazan  9 , Isabelle Huys  10 , Elene Kakabadze  11 , Małgorzata Łobocka  12   13 , Alice Maestri  14 , Gabriel Magno de Freitas Almeida  15 , Khatuna Makalatia  16 , Danish J Malik  17 , Ivana Mašlaňová  18 , Maia Merabishvili  19   20 , Roman Pantucek  21 , Thomas Rose  22 , Dana Štveráková  23   24 , Hilde Van Raemdonck  25 , Gilbert Verbeken  26 , Nina Chanishvili  27
Affiliations

Expert Opinion on Three Phage Therapy Related Topics: Bacterial Phage Resistance, Phage Training and Prophages in Bacterial Production Strains

Christine Rohde et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Phage therapy is increasingly put forward as a "new" potential tool in the fight against antibiotic resistant infections. During the "Centennial Celebration of Bacteriophage Research" conference in Tbilisi, Georgia on 26-29 June 2017, an international group of phage researchers committed to elaborate an expert opinion on three contentious phage therapy related issues that are hampering clinical progress in the field of phage therapy. This paper explores and discusses bacterial phage resistance, phage training and the presence of prophages in bacterial production strains while reviewing relevant research findings and experiences. Our purpose is to inform phage therapy stakeholders such as policy makers, officials of the competent authorities for medicines, phage researchers and phage producers, and members of the pharmaceutical industry. This brief also points out potential avenues for future phage therapy research and development as it specifically addresses those overarching questions that currently call for attention whenever phages go into purification processes for application.

Keywords: Bacteriophage; adaptation; phage therapy; production; prophage; regulation; resistance.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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