Difference between revisions of "Team:Grenoble-Alpes/actors partnerships"

INTERVIEW WITH PR. MAX MAURIN

Dr. Max Maurin notes that in the last few years, he had to face new therapeutic dead-ends caused by the antibiotic resistance that did not exist before. The issue of antibiotic resistance is, in fact, a major issue that we should urgently address. Pseudomonas is a pathogen that he encounters quite often in his department. It is not too virulent but it has numerous resistance mechanisms. According to Dr. Maurin, phage therapy is a very interesting alternative even if it arises some ethical unsolved issues and can also cause a resistance of the bacteria toward phages. The use of bacteriophages in a medical establishment seems feasible because a few years ago, viruses were already used in the biological laboratory of hospitals.

Overall, Dr. Maurin thinks that our system is very interesting and answers well the given problem. However, some biological risks have to be taken into account such as the dissemination of the system components. If these aspects are well evaluated and handled, the system is very promising. Yet, Dr. Morin thinks that it will be very difficult to play on the sensitivity and the specificity of our system to compete with today’s methods in molecular biology. Among all the different specificities of our system, it is mostly the bacteriophages selection that caught his attention the most.

At last, Dr. Morin thinks that physicians do not have enough ethical formations and are not aware enough of new bioethical laws.

INTERVIEW WITH PR. OLIVIER EPAULARD

Each day, Pr. Olivier Epaulard is confronted with patients suffering from diseases caused by resistant bacteria. According to him, a misuse of antibiotics is the cause of 90% of the resistances and one antibiotic treatment out of two is wrongly prescribed. The number of antibiotic resistances does not cease to grow, like the number of immunosuppressed patients. Therefore, antibiotic resistance is a major issue of our century. Pseudomonas is also a pathogen that he encounters quite often in his department. Pr. Epaulard cannot make up his mind on the subject of phage therapy because he does not understand why it is not more developed. The positive aspect of this alternative is that bacteriophages destroy all bacteria - even the inactive ones -, something that antibiotics cannot do. According to him, the use of bacteriophages inside his department would not cause any issue.

Pr. Epaulard thinks that the project is very interesting. He is not overly passionate about the identification aspect but rather by the therapy aspect of the project. The diagnostic tools he uses have already very good specificity and sensitivity. It is going to be hard to compete with them. He verified many aspects of the biology in the system and was pleased with our answers.

Pr. Epaulard thinks that one can learn about bioethics through practice. Therefore, there is no need for more theoretical courses on ethics in a physician formation.

INTERVIEW WITH H.G, PATIENT TREATED WITH PHAGE THERAPY

After getting infected feet wounds, H.G was treated with antibiotics but the infection was not cured. No antibiotic worked and the infection spread. The only way to treat this patient was to amputate the two legs. H.G had heard about phage therapy and contacted a doctor specialized on the subject. He chose to try phage therapy to cure his wounds. Bacteriophages were applied for a year on the wounds and he is now almost cured.

On the pictures, you can see the state of his left foot before and after the phage therapy.