Bacteria-hunting virus fished from Connecticut lake treats infected doctor.

An anti-bacterial virus found in a Connecticut lake successfully treated an 80-year-old doctor with a life-threatening antibiotic-resistant infection in his heart, a Yale team of scientists and doctors reported March 8 in the journal Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health.

The case study suggests that the viruses, called bacteriophages, could be an effective treatment against many drug-resistant infections, said the researchers.

The Connecticut doctor suffered from an infection after he received an aortic arch replacement operation and required massive doses of antibiotics to keep him alive. But the bacteria infecting his heart, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, had developed a resistance to drug treatment. His physician, Dr. Deepak Narayan, was then contacted by research scientist Benjamin Chan who had been screening natural samples for bacteriophage to see if these viruses might be effective against drug-resistant infections. He told Narayan that a virus-hunting expedition at Dodge Pond in Connecticut netted a bacteriophage with affinity for Pseudomonas aeruginosa and suggested that experimental phage therapy might be used to combat the infection.