'This is why we're here': A Winnipeg biotech company's role in a new treatment used in Canada
A Winnipeg biotech company is being celebrated for its role in a first-of-its-kind treatment in Canada.
It's called phage therapy and it was used to treat a serious resistant infection.
"Bacteria phages are actually viruses that only infect bacteria. So they don't infect human cells, animal cells, or event plant cells," said Dr. Steven Theriault, the CEO of Cytophage Technologies.
The therapy is antimicrobial and works where other medications do not. Cytophage is at the forefront of research and development.
"We're a team of scientists that are synthetic biologists as well as trained virologists or people that work on viruses. And what we do is we unlock the potential of bacteria phages.
Theriault said there are many types of bacteria phage but noted the one his company works is like a lunar lander.
"If you can think of it as landing on the moon, it would be landing on a bacterial cell, then it will compress itself and inject its genetic information into the bacteria."
The virus then replicates inside the cell, eventually destroying it.
"So producing another wave of killing bacteria phage to kill off more bacteria.”
Now that therapy is being used – when antibiotics failed for one Ottawa woman.
"She had early signs of sepsis, she had low grade fevers, chills, increasing hip pain," said Dr. Marisa Azad, an infectious disease physician at the Ottawa Hospital. "That's when I knew right then and there, we need to think creatively about this infection, because now this is life threatening."
Azad turned to the phage therapy to treat her patient suffering from a chronic artificial joint infection.
"I had gone through her chart, and I had seen that she had one of the worst prosthetic joint infections I've seen in my career."
Cytophage developed phages specifically designed to target this patient's infection. The treatment was administered through injections and an IV line.
"We saw that signs of inflammation in the body started to go down with subsequent dosing of the phage, and drainage, or leakage from the hip also stopped."
It was the first time the therapy was used in Canada and it potentially saved the patient’s life.
"When I think about it, I think about my staff, and I think about when they see what we're actually doing. We actually helped somebody…taking it from the bench to home. This is why we're here."
The doctors received special approval from Health Canada, as part of a single-patient clinical trial. The research team is now trying to get approval to treat more patients with similar conditions.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
DEVELOPING 120 active fires burning across Canada, 76 are 'out of control'
The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
Veteran TSN sportscaster Darren Dutchyshen has died
Veteran TSN broadcaster Darren 'Dutch' Dutchyshen, one of Canada’s best-known sports journalists, has died. He was 57. His family says 'he passed as he was surrounded by his closest loved ones.'
BREAKING Apple experiencing iMessage outage, Downdetector shows
Apple users are experiencing an iMessage outage, reporting issues with sending and receiving messages, Downdetector shows.
A Toronto man killed his mother and decapitated her. His lawyers argue it wasn't murder
A ‘lifetime of abuse’ led Dallas Ly to snap and repeatedly stab his mother inside their Leslieville apartment in 2022 but he never intended to kill her, his defence lawyers argued during his murder trial in Toronto on Thursday.
Father charged with second-degree murder in daughter's stabbing death southwest of Montreal
A father has been charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of his 34-year-old daughter in southern Quebec.
Trudeau calls New Brunswick's Conservative government a 'disgrace' on women's rights
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau assailed New Brunswick's premier and other conservative leaders on Thursday, calling out the provincial government's position on abortion, LGBTQ youth and climate change.
Kevin Spacey receives star support as he fights to get his career back
Kevin Spacey is pushing back on the 'rush to judgment' against him and is being backed by some big names as he seeks to reclaim his acting career.
Kidnapped by her father and kept in a crawl space: Court documents reveal Montreal horror story
A Montreal father who kidnapped his daughter who has autism and lied to police when they asked where she was should serve three years in prison, a Crown prosecutor said.
He had dreams of running for Canada in the Olympics, then he learned his family would be deported
A burgeoning track star says his dream of going to the Olympics is being derailed by a deportation order after Immigration officials rejected his family’s claim for asylum