• Question: can you fight infection with infection

    Asked by 12parrk to Lyn, Katy, Paul, PB, Ruth on 18 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Peter Balfe

      Peter Balfe answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      Of course. Many gastrointestinal infections are eventually controlled by the other microorganisms in the gut. This has even been taken to a therapy, follow this link about Alisdair MacConnachie for details:
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15113440
      Gross but very interesting!

      Also for decades viruses that kill bacteria have been explored as anti-bacterial agents (google for “bacteriophage therapy”), as have viruses (notably reovirus) that attack cancer cells (google for “virotherapy”). Constant improvements in the quality of the virus preparations are making their use in medicine more likely in the future.

    • Photo: Katy Brown

      Katy Brown answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      Yes, sometimes!

      It’s unusual for doctors to use an infection to treat a disease, but it could occasionally be helpful. Sometimes infection with one disease reduces the symptoms of another. For example, some parasite infections compete with each other, so if one type of parasite is treated, there is more space for the other type to grow. If this parasite is more harmful, the patient will get worse! Similarly, antibiotics kill a lot of bacteria living in the digestive system, and this can allow other infectious agents to grow out of control. There have been some studies into giving doses of intestinal bacteria to people after antibiotic treatment to stop this happening.

    • Photo: Ee Lyn Lim

      Ee Lyn Lim answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      Peter and Katy have already answered this question brilliantly, so I’ll just put in a slightly off-topic comment – not only can infection fight infection, it can be used to fight diseases that aren’t caused by infection, too. Cancer, for example! One of the things I’m working on is a ‘tumour vaccine’. Usually you give people a vaccine before they get sick, so that they don’t get sick…if that makes sense. But for people who already have cancer, we could possibly also inject them with certain types of bacteria, just to get their immune systems awake and kicking, and hopefully while the immune system is getting rid of the bacteria it will get rid of the cancer, too.

      We can also use infectious viruses to change the way cells behave, because viruses are very good at carrying bits of DNA and planting them into cells. I think this comic presents it quite well, but if you want to know more, please do ask! http://xkcd.com/938/

    • Photo: Paul Waines

      Paul Waines answered on 27 Jun 2013:

      Hi 12parrk- sorry its taken me a while to answer this!

      Yes you can. This is because evolution has produced such an vast array of different life forms that there will always be something which will be capable of, and always trying to, cause infection in something else.

      We are able to use this to our advantage, and the others have explained this brilliantly. one area that I work in is the use of ‘good bacteria’ in fish which we farm for food- we are effectively infecting fish with these good bacteria, and once in they ‘chuck out’ the disease causing bacteria!

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