Thoughts on Engagement - JM

Thoughts on Engagement
Recently, antibiotic resistant bacteria has been emerging in numerous cities in the US, and multiple different countries. These super bugs have created a threat that could cause a death toll at about ~130 million deaths per year by 2050. Luckily, we have weapon of our own, which could completely prevent this from happening.  Bacteriophages, or “Phages” for short, are the deadliest organism in the world, and are specialized killers of bacteria. There are 10 to the 31st power (10^31) of them in the world, and there are about 2 billion of them on you right now There are also thousands of different types of phage.
A phage is a very simple organism, the head or top of it is an icosahedron, which holds phage DNA. The tail hold a hypodermic needle which is used to inject its DNA into its preferred bacterial prey. The leg fibers are used for navigating its local environment, and latching on to its chosen victim.  The process of a phage killing a cell of bacteria, is pretty interesting. The phage finds a bacterial cell that is configured for, and latches onto it using its leg fibers, and injects its hypodermic needle through the cell wall or surface of the bacteria. After its DNA is injected into the bacteria, the DNA starts to use the cells resources to create more phages, and also produces an enzyme which creates gas and pressure within the cell. After more phages have been assembled, and the pressure buildup due to the gas becomes immense, the preyed cell essentially vomits out all of its contents, as well as the newly created phages.

Phages cannot harm human or animal cells, they just politely bump into them, and leave. This is such an immensely large advantage for us as humans. With all this information acquired and recorded, we have facilitated the ability to use these to kill antibiotic resistant bacteria, as well as incurable diseases that plague us today. Antibiotics can cure us of certain diseases, but they kill good bacteria in our digestive system in the process, phages will only direct their attention towards bacteria that can harm us.

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