It’s Been Phages!

Episode 4 of our series, “The History of Phage Therapy” and the first instalment of a three parter on the colossal Twort-d’Herelle Controversy.This controversy was a big deal at the time, and it really shook the trajectory of phage therapy and was perhaps partly responsible for its downfall in the Western World. There were two big questions at the heart of this controversy: what were bacteriophages, and who discovered them first?In this episode we focus on the second question and investigate the two main contenders for who discovered bacteriophages first: Fredrick Twort and Felix d’Herelle. Both men had strong claims, but to effectively answer this question we need to first establish WHEN were bacteriophages first discovered.Expect many twist and turns, with some truly adrenaline spiking phage history!

Who is Fredrick Twort? Well that was exactly the question on Felix d'Herelle's mind in 1921! After publishing his discovery of bacteriophage in 1917, d'Herelle was riding high for a few years until it was revealed that an English scientist - named Fredrick William Twort - had in fact discovered bacteriophage (or something similar) in 1915.In this episode we introduce Fredrick Twort and discuss his discovery of bacteriophage - or his bacteriolytic agent - in 1915.

In 1915, as World War One raged, Felix d'Herelle was sent to investigate an awful outbreak of dysentery on the outskirts of Paris. From this, he would finally have his fateful encounter with bacteriophage.After publishing his paper "On an invisible microbe antagonistic toward dysenteric bacilli", d'Herelle's life and the entire course of history would be altered . However, this publication also served as the starter pistol for a decade long dispute...

In today's episode we introduce the arguably most important figure in the history of phage therapy: Felix d'Herelle. Felix d'Herelle would go on to discover* bacteriophages in 1917 just as the Great War was beginning to wind down. In this episode we focus on introducing d'Herelle and his life leading up to this fateful discovery. As you will see, even outside of his discovery of bacteriophage, d'Herelle is an extremely interesting character and is surrounded by his own degree of mystery - and controversy. For the first few years of its existence , the entire field of bacteriophage research was pretty much launched through the sheer will of d'Herelle's personality. And d'Herelle's personality goes a long way to explain both the successes and failures of the early days of phage therapy...

The very first episode in a coming series on the history of phage therapy and research. To make sure all future listeners are on an equal footing, I thought it was a good idea to introduce the very basics of bacteriophage biology. Give this a listen not only for a quick biology crash course but for a fun bit of etymology and an extremely forced IKEA metaphor! Stay tuned for the future episodes in which we will get to grips with the history side of things!