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The idea that diseases can be harnessed to treat other illnesses might sound strange, but it’s a proven fact. Over the centuries, researchers have discovered methods to use harmful bacteria, viruses, and protozoa to fight and cure diseases caused by other dangerous pathogens.
While it may appear contradictory to treat one disease with another, this approach has repeatedly proven effective. Moreover, it’s not always as alarming as it sounds. Certain viruses and bacteria, which are not inherently harmful to humans, have also been successfully used to combat life-threatening conditions.
10. Malaria
For much of history, syphilis was untreatable and frequently resulted in death within four years. The most severe form, neurosyphilis, occurs when the nervous system is infected, marking the disease's final stage. Symptoms include blindness, insanity, paralysis, and ultimately death. Most syphilis patients were institutionalized in asylums until their demise.
In the 1880s, Austrian psychiatrist Dr. Julius Wagner-Jauregg began developing a treatment for syphilis. He employed pyrotherapy, a method involving the artificial induction of fever by introducing a less harmful pathogen. The resulting high fever eradicated the incurable disease, and the introduced infection was subsequently treated.
Dr. Wagner-Jauregg initially attempted to cure syphilis using tuberculosis antigen, as well as typhus and typhoid vaccines, without success. His breakthrough came in June 1917 when a wounded soldier with malaria was mistakenly sent to the psychiatric ward of his hospital. Recognizing the opportunity, the doctor used the soldier's condition to advance his pyrotherapy research for syphilis.
Dr. Wagner-Jauregg extracted blood from the soldier and injected it into nine patients with advanced syphilis. The malaria-causing Plasmodium protozoa induced a high fever that destroyed the syphilis-causing Treponema pallidum bacteria. He then treated the six surviving patients, who had contracted malaria, with quinine.
In 1918, Dr. Wagner-Jauregg published his findings, revealing that syphilis is eradicated when the body sustains a temperature of 41 degrees Celsius (106 °F) for six hours. His treatment quickly became the preferred method for syphilis, despite its limitations and risks.
Syphilis patients frequently experienced complications when injected with incompatible blood types, often inheriting the blood-related diseases of their donors. The highly dangerous malaria strain used initially could lead to severe anemia and kidney failure. Eventually, doctors transitioned to the less lethal Plasmodium vivax strain. This treatment approach was discontinued following the introduction of antibiotics.
9. HIV
It’s astonishing that one of the world’s most devastating diseases can be repurposed to treat other life-threatening conditions. Researchers have developed a method to utilize HIV in curing leukodystrophy and Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, two fatal disorders predominantly affecting children.
To clarify, the treatment does not involve HIV directly but rather viral vectors derived partially from HIV. These vectors are employed to deliver genetic material into cells, a technique central to gene therapy. In 2010, a team of Italian physicians, led by Dr. Luigi Naldini, administered HIV-based viral vectors to 16 children—six with Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome and ten with leukodystrophy.
Three years later, six of the children showed gradual recovery from their diseases, with three suffering from Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome and the other three from leukodystrophy. The remaining ten also exhibited signs of improvement. However, the procedure remains inconclusive as it is still under clinical trials.
8. Cancer
CRISPR (pronounced 'crisper') stands for 'Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.' It is a key component of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool, enabling scientists to modify the DNA within cells.
While many scientists focus on using CRISPR to alter harmful genes, researchers at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey are exploring its potential to treat cancer. CRISPR is effective for cancer therapy because cancer cells often migrate back to their original tumor sites.
Using CRISPR, researchers at the Rutgers Cancer Institute engineered cancer cells to produce the cancer-killing S-TRAIL protein. These modified cells destroyed other cancerous cells upon returning to the tumor and then self-destructed. However, this technology has only been tested on mice and not yet on humans.
7. Cowpox
The cowpox virus played a pivotal role in developing the first vaccine for smallpox, a deadly virus that afflicted millions until its eradication in 1977. The term 'vaccine' originates from vaccinus, the Latin word for 'cow,' highlighting the connection to cowpox.
While Dr. Edward Jenner of England is credited with creating the first smallpox vaccine, historical records show that ancient Chinese and Middle Eastern populations had long practiced self-infection with cowpox to build immunity against the virus.
Dr. Jenner developed the smallpox vaccine after noticing that milkmaids, who often contracted cowpox from cows, were immune to smallpox. In 1796, he tested his theory by inoculating eight-year-old James Phipps with cowpox, successfully proving its protective effect against smallpox.
Dr. Jenner exposed Phipps to smallpox six weeks after infecting him with cowpox. Phipps did not contract smallpox, proving his immunity to the virus. Dr. Jenner published his findings, and the smallpox vaccine, which eventually eradicated the disease, was developed using the vaccinia virus, a close relative of cowpox.
6. Poliovirus
Poliovirus, the cause of polio, was once among the most feared diseases globally. Today, it is nearly eradicated, with only 22 cases reported in 2017, a significant drop from the 350,000 cases recorded in 1988.
Scientists are now exploring the use of poliovirus to treat glioblastoma (GBM), a rare and highly aggressive brain cancer. GBM is typically treated with surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, but it often recurs and is fatal within approximately a year.
Researchers at the Duke Cancer Institute in Durham, North Carolina, developed a poliovirus-based therapy. They genetically engineered the poliovirus to create PVSRIPO, which is directly injected into glioblastoma brain tumors to target and destroy cancer cells.
A clinical trial involving 61 glioblastoma patients showed a 21-percent survival rate. While this may appear low, it is a significant improvement compared to the mere four percent survival rate observed with standard treatments.
Although PVSRIPO shows potential, it may lead to adverse side effects, particularly depending on the tumor's location within the brain.
5. Bacteriophage Therapy
In 2015, 69-year-old Tom Patterson was diagnosed with pancreatitis (pancreatic inflammation) during a trip to Egypt with his wife. Traditional treatments failed, prompting his transfer to Frankfurt, Germany, where doctors drained fluid from around his pancreas and identified a drug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii infection.
Patterson was subsequently transferred to Thornton Hospital in San Diego, California, where a drain was placed around his pancreas to manage fluid leakage. However, the drain dislodged, allowing fluid to seep into his abdomen and bloodstream. This led to high fever, severe pain, breathing difficulties, and a two-month coma.
As a final attempt to save his life, doctors turned to bacteriophage therapy. Contrary to what the name implies, bacteriophages are viruses, not bacteria. The term means 'bacteria eater,' referring to a unique group of viruses that specifically target and infect bacteria. Each bacterium has a corresponding bacteriophage that has evolved to exploit it for replication.
Bacteriophage therapy involves using these bacteria-targeting viruses to treat bacterial infections. It was the primary method for combating deadly bacteria before the advent of antibiotics. However, its effectiveness lacks comprehensive scientific validation.
Despite this, the therapy proved successful, and Patterson gradually emerged from his coma—until the A. baumannii bacteria mutated and became resistant to the virus. Doctors addressed this by introducing a newer strain of the virus into Patterson’s system, ultimately curing him.
4. Maraba Virus
Researchers have long recognized that the Maraba virus (also known as the MG1 virus) targets and destroys cancer cells. However, scientists at the Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa have found that the Maraba virus also attacks and eliminates HIV-infected cells.
HIV operates by invading and rapidly replicating within the immune system cells of its host. Over time, some HIV-infected cells become dormant, while others continue to multiply.
Antiretroviral drugs are commonly prescribed to suppress HIV. However, these drugs only target active HIV-infected cells and are ineffective against dormant ones. When a patient stops taking the drugs, the dormant cells reactivate and begin to reproduce rapidly.
Laboratory tests have demonstrated that the Maraba virus can eliminate dormant HIV-infected cells, suggesting a potential cure for HIV. However, this approach remains inconclusive as it has only been tested in labs and not yet on animals or humans.
3. CAR-T Therapy
T-cells are crucial components of the body's immune system. Recently, researchers have devised a technique to harness T-cells for chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR-T therapy), a groundbreaking anticancer treatment.
CAR-T therapy involves extracting natural T-cells from the body and engineering them with chimeric antigen receptors, significantly enhancing their ability to identify, attach to, and eliminate cancer cells. These genetically modified T-cells are customized to target the specific type of cancer in the patient, making them highly effective cancer cell assassins.
However, CAR-T therapy is typically reserved as a last-resort option due to its potential side effects, such as brain inflammation. The process is also lengthy, as the T-cells must be customized for each patient, often taking up to four months to complete.
2. Predatory Bacteria
Predatory bacteria are microorganisms that hunt and consume other bacteria. They function by invading and breaking through the cell walls of their prey. Once inside, they devour the bacterium's contents, reproduce, and move on to attack other similar bacterial cells.
Researchers are exploring the use of predatory bacteria to combat bacterial infections, particularly superbugs that have developed resistance to conventional antibiotics.
In November 2016, the BBC reported that scientists at Imperial College London and the University of Nottingham successfully used the predatory bacteria Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus to eliminate Shigella, a dangerous group of bacteria responsible for food poisoning and over a million deaths annually.
In laboratory tests, Shigella populations decreased by 4,000 times after exposure to B. bacteriovorus. Additionally, experiments with fish larvae showed survival rates for those infected with Shigella rise from 25 percent to 60 percent. Scientists aim to test B. bacteriovorus against other harmful bacteria like Salmonella and E. coli.
1. Coley’s Toxin Treatment
Coley’s toxin treatment utilizes bacteria to combat cancer. Named after William Coley, a New York bone surgeon who developed it in the 1890s, the method was inspired by his observation that cancer surgery patients who contracted bacterial infections often fared better than those who did not.
Coley theorized that bacterial infections boosted the immune system, prompting him to inject live bacteria into his cancer patients. He later switched to dead bacteria to avoid the risks of deadly infections associated with live bacteria.
The mechanism behind Coley’s toxin treatment remains debated. Some scientists argue that the bacteria enhance the immune system’s ability to target cancer cells. Others believe the bacteria stimulate the production of interleukin 12 (IL12) or tumor necrosis factor (TNF), proteins that attack cancer cells. A third group suggests that the high fever induced by the bacteria, similar to pyrotherapy, destroys the cancerous cells.
Coley’s toxin treatment yielded mixed outcomes, working for some patients but not others. It remained widely used until the early 1950s, when treatments like chemotherapy replaced it. Today, an enhanced version using genetically modified bacteria is still in use.
