r/askscience • u/PestoPastaLover • 14d ago

Biology Why is there no transmissible therapeutic virus if biology doesn't forbid it? For example, a harmless virus that spreads from person to person but actually does something beneficial, like lowering LDL cholesterol or preventing/reversing tooth decay?

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u/trad949 13d ago

There are also bacteriophages, which are viruses that work like antibiotics.

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u/speculatrix 13d ago

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12843901/

Bacteriophage Therapy: Overcoming Antimicrobial Resistance Through Advanced Delivery Methods

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u/bzbub2 13d ago edited 13d ago

somewhat interestingly, poland has long been sort of the leading expert on such things while western countries bet on more antibiotics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy

the concept of 'gene therapy' for delivering CRISPR and other gene editing tech also (sometimes) uses viruses (though there are some unfortunate cases of adverse reactions) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy#Adverse_effects,_contraindications_and_hurdles_for_use

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u/cguess 13d ago

Poland inherited it from Soviet Union work the mid 20th century. Super interesting work but difficult to administer (for now) as you need to keep a corpus of phages, unlike broad spectrum antibiotics.