Word: fischetti
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Another strategy is to ambush the bacteria with an unlikely ally: viruses. Vincent Fischetti at Rockefeller University is enlisting the help of bacteriophages, viruses that infect only bacterial cells, leaving human ones alone. They hijack the bacterium's genetic machinery and within minutes start to pump out hundreds of copies of themselves. When enough progeny build up inside the cell, the phages produce an enzyme that chews through the cell wall, causing it to explode with the force of a popping champagne cork and spew out the viral intruders...
Treating humans with live viruses--even ones that shouldn't harm us--is always risky, so Fischetti decided to isolate just the bacteria-puncturing enzyme and use it to kill bacteria from the outside. So far, he has developed compounds against pneumococcus, streptococcus and anthrax and hopes to eventually treat infected patients by squirting the enzymes in nasal-spray form weekly...
...Source: Vincent Fischetti, Ph.D., Rockefeller University...
...Harvard eruption chased B.C. starter Lauren Fischetti from the game in favor of Ryan...