Phage M13 for the treatment of Alzheimer and Parkinson disease

• A remarkable discovery is that a bacteriophage can reverse the aggregation of misfolded proteins in the brain.
• A reversal of the aggregation of misfolded proteins provides a novel approach to therapy against Alzheimer and Parkinson disease.
• Studies of microbes have led to many unexpected discoveries affecting the treatment of illnesses.

The studies of microbes have been instrumental in combatting infectious diseases, but they have also led to great insights into basic biological mechanism like DNA replication, transcription, and translation of mRNA. In particular, the studies of bacterial viruses, also called bacteriophage, have been quite useful to study specific cellular processes because of the ease to isolate their DNA, mRNA, and proteins. Here, I review the recent discovery of how properties of the filamentous phage M13 emerge as a novel approach to combat neurodegenerative diseases.