Title: Phages against superbugs

Research group: Environmental and Biomedical Viruses

The SUPERFAGO project is part of initiative to make citizens aware of the potential of phage therapy to fight against multidrug-resistant bacteria, better known as “superbugs”. Due to a misuse, the emergency of these multidrug-resistant bacteria led current treatment to experience a loss in efficacy, which makes it harder to fight against bacterial infections. Throughout the last decade, the World Health Organisation informed about the challenge this issue poses for the planet’s health. It’s necessary to introduce complementary or alternative therapies, with phage therapy being a very promising one. Applying this clinical therapy to a patient infected by a pathogenic bacterium requires phage banks, which allows to select the most effective ones for each patient.

The project consists in elaborating a Spanish phage bank, for which a massive gathering of environment samples (soil and aquatic environment) is required. It’s aimed at the educational community within the secondary education field (tenth grade) and A levels (first year of Bachillerato).

The SUPERFAGO project is based on the Learning-Service concept (learning by carrying out a service for the community) and has three main goals: (i) make society aware of the health benefits of phage therapy via the educational community; (ii) introduce secondary education and A levels students to the Science world by making them participate in a research project; (iii) contribute to a global health solution by looking for new tools for alternative therapy.

Jesús Navas

José Ramos Vivas

Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación

Ayudas para el Fomento de la Cultura Científica, Tecnológica y de la Innovación

Universidad de Cantabria

Instituto de Biología Integrativa de Sistemas, Universitat de Valencia-CSIC