Zurich/Bern/Geneva — An international consortium led by the Balgrist University Hospital in Zurich has launched a five-year project to research phage therapy. The EU is providing 15 million euros in funding for it. The Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and the Universities of Zurich and Bern are also involved.
(CONNECT) The REPhRAME research project, led by Frankfurt University Medical Center and scheduled to run for five years, is receiving 15 million euros from the European research and innovation programme Horizon Europe. According to their statement, Balgrist University Hospital is playing a leading role in this effort. The international consortium also includes three other institutions from Switzerland: the decentralised Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, as well as the Universities of Bern and Zurich. In total, the consortium brings together 16 partners from academia, clinical research, and industry across eight European countries.
REPhRAME is designed to address the growing problem of antibiotic resistance in recurrent urinary tract infections. A randomised clinical trial is investigating, for the first time, the combination of phage therapy and restoration of the gut microbiome. Initially, phages—viruses that specifically target and kill bacteria—are intended to combat the most common causes of urinary tract infections, namely certain strains of the intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli, thereby making it more difficult for new resistances to develop.
The second step is to restore the gut microbiome. INTESTIFIX 001, a product from the Cologne Microbiota Bank at the University of Cologne that is currently being tested in several clinical trials, is used for this purpose. In this process, gut bacteria from healthy donors are transferred to help restore the natural balance in the gut.
The Neuro-Urology Department at Balgrist University Hospital is one of the leading centres for the diagnosis and treatment of neuro-urological disorders. REPhRAME builds on their research and consistently advances it. "REPhRAME marks an important milestone for clinical phage research in Europe," says Dr. Shawna McCallin, who serves as co-director of the Phage Therapy & Research Group there. "This unique opportunity brings us a decisive step closer to the evidence-based use of phage therapy in clinical practice." ce/mm
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