Project 2026

Protecting Okinawa's pigs from bacterial infection

Pigs are in danger from bacterial infection

Swine dysentery is a bacterial infection.
It causes bloody diarrhea and stunted growth,
and spreads fast enough to devastate a farm.
Until now, it was treated with antibiotics.

But

the drugs stop working

In recent years, more bacteria have developed resistance, and antibiotics work less well.

So we are developing a virus,

Phages

to replace antibiotics.

What is a phage?

A phage is a virus that
attacks bacteria. It kills
only the target bacteria.

But
phages have a weakness

Phages are weak against acid and cannot
work in the stomach's harsh acidity.
As they are, they cannot treat the infection.

So our goal is to develop
acid-resistant phages
that survive the stomach.

How do we build them?

We improve phages through
selective breeding. To do that,
we must find which genes to
change, and how to change them,
to make a phage resist acid.
But the number of possible
genetic changes is enormous.