Phage Consultants highlights bacteriophages as antibiotic alternative in contamination control

Gdansk, Poland: – Specialist CRO Phage Consultants (PC) will make a significant poster presentation at the upcoming Recent Advances in Microbial Control meeting in San Diego next month.

Phage Consultants CEO Dr. Marcin Los will present new insights on using bacteriophages as an effective way to control bacterial contamination in bioprocesses, avoiding use of antibiotics.

PC will also use the meeting to showcase a recently developed ‘phage cocktail’ that can prevent Bacillus contamination.

Bacteriophage cocktails

Microbial contaminations, especially those caused by sporulating bacteria, are very difficult to avoid and eradicate in almost any type of processes, especially those that utilize other microorganisms.

“Using conventional tools can suppress or prevent bacterial growth, but this may be extremely difficult in processes driven by bacteria, and infected by bacteria,” said Dr. Los.

“In other processes, the suppression of growth of bacterial contaminants may not be possible without use of expensive, and thus uneconomic, antibiotics. This is often the case in industrial biotechnology, where profit margin may be relatively narrow,” he explained.

“We propose to use selected bacteriophages or bacteriophage cocktail mixes in order to suppress contaminant growth,” Dr. Los said.

Eco-friendly

“This method is not only more eco-friendly but also has very low cost for end users. Bacteriophages can be used at very low concentration, and due to their nature, will multiply in the presence of a contaminant to effectively suppress its growth. This distinctive characteristic of phages allow us to protect relatively large operations using minimal resources,” Dr. Los said.

This will be Phage Consultant’s second appearance at an RAMC meeting. Marcin Los was a speaker at the 2014 conference, when he foreshadowed use of bacteriophage technology.

“Since 2014, we have developed a range of solutions that can be applied to decontaminate any industrial bioprocess and isolate it from bacterial threats, with bacteriophage mixes that can be customized to any particular application,” Dr. Los added.

“The RAMC San Diego meeting provides a great opportunity for us to connect with fermentation managers and biological production teams using bioreactors, to show how they can use the power of bacteriophages to suppress bacterial contaminants growth in more effective and selective ways,” he concluded.

About Phage Consultants

Bacteriophages (phages) are viruses that infect bacteria. First discovered around 1915, phages play an important role in viral biology, used to elucidate DNA viral reproduction through lytic and lysogenic cycles. They have been used for almost a century as alternatives to antibiotics and can have therapeutic effect against multi-drug-resistant strains of many bacteria.

Based in Poland, Phage Consultants is a contract research and manufacturing organization that specializes in bacteriophage detection and characterization and production. PC have become world leaders in using the power of bacteriophage technology in bioprocess infection and contamination control and assisting companies whose production is based on microbial activities in preventing phage, bacterial, fungal and viral contaminations.

Phage Consultants are also specialists in the field of bacteriophage biology with specific expertise on phage activity in bioprocessing. Its team provides unique assistance to pharmaceutical and biotech companies, offering a range of services from personal training to consulting and process optimization in phage growth limitation. The company also advises and assists clients in the development of new production facilities.

About RAMC 2016

First staged in 2010, the Recent Advances in Microbial Control (RAMC) conference provides a forum for established industry leaders, entrepreneurs, academics and regulators to discuss new technologies and recent developments in controlling and detecting microbial activity in various industrial settings. The event also aims to raise awareness of the safest and most effective solutions.

This is a biennial event held in the autumn of every even year. The 4th meeting, RAMC 2016, is four day event opening October 9 at the Westin Gaslamp Quarter Hotel in San Diego, California.

The format for RAMC 2016 will be similar to the previous meetings, with non-concurrent plenary sessions, poster presentations, group meals and receptions to allow ample opportunities for informal networking.

Technical topics for 2016 will include food microbial safety, microbial control in industrial water, detection of microbes, microbial issues associated with energy production, environmental microbial threats and the use of beneficial microbes for antimicrobial control.

The event is organized by the US-based Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (SIMB) with more information at: http://www.simbhq.org/ramc/