INTERVIEW FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE November 2022 65 tive treatments. After having experienced COVID pandemic, society has become more sensible to a potential global health risk. Moreover, food for health, increasing sustainability and mastering the role of the microbiome are among megatrends expected for food industry, what foreshadows rather a strong and consistent change in customer expectations and behaviors. How is antibiotic-free food better for the consumers? First of all, because of growing AMR, antibiotics have been ceasing to be a good solution in animal production in a natural way. Secondly, they lower the quality of food by leaving residues in meat and eggs, what creates further challenges. While antibiotics are miracle drugs that save lives, we want to withdraw them as much as possible from the food chain. The scientific revolution and microbiome discovery, understanding its impact on human health and food production – all of these contribute to the emergence of alternative, better solutions. How can food producers limit the usage of antibiotics without compromising food safety? What are the alternatives you mentioned? At Proteon Pharmaceuticals, we have developed an innovative precision technology platform which enables creating products based on naturally occurring bacteriophages. Bacteriophages are the smallest, most numerous organisms on the planet. Their purpose is to fight with bacteria in the body/nature. Phages are viruses that infect only bacterial cells, and thus since their discovery over 100 years ago have been proposed as antimicrobial agents. Phages were used as antibacterial therapies in the 1920s and 30s but steadily fell out of favor following the discovery and mass production of antibiotics. Bacteriophages are the proven, serious competitor to antibiotics when it comes to controlling pathogenic bacteria. Proteon’s phage-based products are an exciting alternative, as bacteriophage well-designed cocktails are very effective against the different pathogenic bacteria species. Working against selected pathogenic strains, they do not contribute to the development of antibiotic resistance. They function by modulating the microbiome and enabling prophylactic health. They are not a simple replacement for antibiotics, however, they have a number of other beneficial features. What are these other beneficial features offered by bacteriophages? Proteon’s phage-based products themselves are natural and organic. They leave no residues. Used in animal farming, they positively modulate the microbiome and contribute to obtaining better produc-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTUxNjkxNQ==