Süddeutsche Zeitung features Phageguard' phage technology
The Süddeutsche Zeitung features an article named “Schnitzel spezial” in their January 17th issue by Susanne Donner. Here Phage technology is being highlighted and discussed in the article. Below is a translation of the original German article. The German article features the two organic antimicrobial solutions that Phageguard currently offers.
“Schnitzel spezial” as featured in the Süddeutsche Zeitung
A new specialty product is to fight disease in food. One that exclusively targets bacteria and does not harm other living organisms They are called phages. With their help the number of food infections could go down significantly, the researchers and developers of the phage technology promise.
Salmonella on eggs and chicken, listeria on pre-cut vegetables or raw milk cheese and E. coli bacteria in sprouts or on meat. Every year, doctors report about 200,000 food infectious diseases in Germany. Probably, however, it is much more, since not everyone with symptoms visits a doctor. Most people get violent diarrhea, sometimes fever. Repeatedly, severe complications, such as an infection-related arthrosis. Worldwide, 420,000 people die each year of food infections. Phages are to change this.
In the USA, Australia, Canada, Switzerland and individual EU countries, the method is already allowed, even for bioproducts. The Dutch manufacturer Phageguard expects an approval for the whole EU. The companies Nestlé and Eli Lilly are investigating the use of phages for food. Phages occur everywhere: in the soil, in the sea, even on bread and on the skin. And they are highly specific. That is, one type of phage affects only a few types of bacteria. A Phage penetrates into its host and multiplies therein until the single-cell bursts. Deadly for bacteria but harmless for humans.
Although phages were discovered in the 1920s, no single case is known in which a human being is diseased. On the contrary, as enemies of pathogenic bacteria, phages can repress cholera agents or wound infections. “In Russia, there are still over-the-counter phage preparations available in pharmacies. By the triumph of the antibiotics they have fallen into oblivion,” says the biologist Stefan Hertwig from the Berlin Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). However, since more and more bacteria are resistant to antibiotics, the technology has been experiencing a renaissance for several years, particularly for combating food infections.
The company Phageguard has developed two phage products: one for Salmonella and one for Listeria. The customers spray or soak turkey, chicken, fish, milk products and also pre-cut vegetables with it.
Approximately one billion phages are then placed on each gram of food. The approval authority in the USA had no security concerns. Since the phages occur in nature everywhere, they classify them as “fundamentally safe”. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has become more difficult. For several years now, the petition has been lodged against Listeria. She called for studies that show how reliable Phages are.
After the producer submitted 33 different experiments, the agency issued a cautious attitude in August 2016. As a result, the product can reduce the number of Listeria on meat, dairy products and fish by a factor of 100 to 1000. However, since foodstuffs prepared in all experiments were investigated, it was uncertain how strong the effect on real goods would be. It asks the manufacturer to make more field studies in the event of an authorization. Also, it is necessary to observe Phageguard. In fact, “one of hundreds of millions of bacteria are naturally resistant to pesticide,” says Bert de Vegt, Managing Director of Phageguard. “Since the goods would be treated just before leaving the factory, resistant phages could not accumulate in production,” he says. The studies conducted by the Hanover Veterinary College and the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment show that phages can inhibit food germs. For example in the chicken coop: In the gut of fattening fowls, the most common foodstuff increases at all: Campylobacter. It causes severe, bloody diarrhea. A single infected animal suffices to spread to the conveyor belts in the slaughterhouse and to proliferate on the whole carcass. “Other means do not work well against these bacteria,” says Sophie Kittler, a veterinarian from Hanover.
Scientists found the natural counterparts to Campylobacter in chickens: four different phages with the potential to render the bacterium harmless. Kittler found that the germs on the meat are reduced by a factor of one thousand when the chickens receive phage treatment in their drinking water before the slaughter. The veterinarian also tested the phage mixture in chickens with up to 20,000 animals. However with mixed success.
The first run fully rid Campylobacter. However, the second time the phages did not grow in the intestines of the animals, because campylobacter strains were predominant, which did not affect the selected phages. Campylobacter colonization again stagnated the third time.
The inconsistent results reveal the weakness of the phage method. “It is difficult to apply,” says Kittler. First of all, the Campylobacter bacteria must be accurately characterized in the gut of the chickens. It is then necessary to prepare a phage cocktail that is precisely matched to these bacteria. In addition, the bacteria often sit in niches and crevices of the foods into which the immobile phages can hardly penetrate.
Thus, are antibiotics the most effective weapon against bacteria? “No, I would not say that they are. In addition, antibiotics are not wishful to have on foodstuffs and in livestock because they cause other problems, such as the multiresistant germs” -says Stefan Hertwig of BfR. The effectiveness is also not better per se. “Phages are an innovative approach that can contribute to food hygiene. However, we need to keep in mind that they are not a cure-all”.