GangaGen
Since a long time, people had believed that the river had self-cleansing and healing powers. But it seemed very strange considering the filth that fills the river and its pollution levels. But indeed, the river water has demonstrated bactericidal activity! Even before the 20th century had begun, Ernest Hankin, a British bacteriologist had started to investigate the bactericidal properties of the Ganga River. He found that colonies of cholera bacteria that thrived in tap water quickly died in Ganges water. He pursued his experiment by using boiled Ganges water and filtered Ganges water. To his surprise, while the filtered water continued to show an antibacterial effect, the boiled water did not. This clearly indicated that the factor responsible for the water’s bactericidal properties was heat labile (altered by heat) but not not filterable, at least not with the porcelain Pasteur filters Hankin used in his experiment. But at that time, viruses weren't famous yet, let alone bacteriophages.
But eventually, Felix d’Herelle discovered phages and correlated their properties to the observations Hankin had made about the ‘factors’ that gave the bactericidal properties to the Ganga river water. The phages could pass through the bacterial filters, and were denatured on heating or boiling. And these results fit perfectly with Hankin’s observations!
So, this suggests the Ganges is heavily populated with phages. They are essentially harmless to humans because they are highly strain specific. For example, phages that infect the cholera bacterium can only infect the cholera bacterium and no other bacteria. This fact has been the basis of phage therapy. Many companies have developed phage cocktails to fight bacterial growth, in the food industry as well as biomedical industry. One Indian company GangaGen, Inc. focuses on the development of bacteriophage products for the prevention and treatment of bacterial infections, particularly infections that are resistant to antibiotics.
Read more about the company here: http://www.gangagen.com/index.html
But eventually, Felix d’Herelle discovered phages and correlated their properties to the observations Hankin had made about the ‘factors’ that gave the bactericidal properties to the Ganga river water. The phages could pass through the bacterial filters, and were denatured on heating or boiling. And these results fit perfectly with Hankin’s observations!
So, this suggests the Ganges is heavily populated with phages. They are essentially harmless to humans because they are highly strain specific. For example, phages that infect the cholera bacterium can only infect the cholera bacterium and no other bacteria. This fact has been the basis of phage therapy. Many companies have developed phage cocktails to fight bacterial growth, in the food industry as well as biomedical industry. One Indian company GangaGen, Inc. focuses on the development of bacteriophage products for the prevention and treatment of bacterial infections, particularly infections that are resistant to antibiotics.
Read more about the company here: http://www.gangagen.com/index.html