Armata Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ARMP)

[lesgetrich]

Here's an interesting article on how a bacteriophage has helped save the abalone industry in California. Armata is researching using different bacteriophages to fight bacterial diseases in humans..

A good virus comes to the rescue of California’s abalone

‘A PARASITE OF A PARASITE’-‘Bacteria eater’ protects the treasured sea snails from a crippling disease...


...“The abalone would become weak and fall off and starve to death,” said Doug Bush, an aquaculture specialist at the Cultured Abalone Farm in Goleta. “We were just bucketing dead abalone out of here.”

Then about 15 years ago, as suddenly as the disease appeared, another mystery began confounding scientists.

“An abalone farmer sent me some samples and when I looked at them under the microscope, it looked like the bacteria were dying,” said Jim Moore, the now-retired head of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Shellfish Health Laboratory at the Bodega Marine Lab. “I called him up and said, ‘Hey,

you must have sent me a sample that you treated with antibiotics.’ And he said no, and I thought that was really strange.”

At the same time, Friedman was noticing changes in wild black abalone around the Monterey Peninsula. Using electron microscopy techniques, she found a bacteriophage hijacking the pathogen.

“I thought it was really interesting and kind of exciting that you have this hyperparasite, a parasite of a parasite,” Friedman said of her discovery. “It’s sort of thought of as a natural therapy.”

Scientists found that the virus infects about 60% of an abalone’s withering syndrome bacteria, turning them into little bacteriophage factories. But little more was known, and they weren’t sure whether abalone would continue to die from the bacterial infection when stressed by warmer waters.

It wasn’t until years later when another marine heat wave hit between 2013 and 2016 that the protective effect became clear. Abalone farmers found that the problem of withering syndrome virtually disappeared thanks to the virus.

“We don’t view withering syndrome with the same lens as before — as an existential threat to the future of our business,” Bush said.

Beyond aiding abalone farms, the virus could also help wild abalone populations recover and survive in the coming years, particularly as climate change raises ocean temperatures.

“This is really good news for most abalone species,” said Kristin Aquilino, who raises white abalone at the Bodega Marine Lab to replenish wild populations.

Abalone continue to face a number of obstacles, including a devastating loss of their kelp forest habitat. White and black abalone are still listed as endangered, and there are still so few abalone left in the wild that it’s difficult for them to successfully reproduce.

But for now, the virus is keeping the once-deadly bacterial pathogen at bay.

“There are plenty of other issues,” said Seavey, the Monterey abalone farmer. “But that one has really gotten a lot easier to deal with.”