Revisiting a 100-year-old medical treatment to tackle the growing crisis of antibiotic resistance

Every minute, all around us, battles are fought on a microscopic level.

Bacteriophages (also known as phages) are viruses that infect and kill bacteria. Just like viruses that infect us, these phages seek to steal the resources of the bacteria to replicate and survive.

Phages were independently discovered by Frederick Twort in 1915 and Félix d’Hérelle in 1917.

By the 1920s, d’Hérelle had begun using phages to treat bacterial infections, laying the groundwork for what became known as phage therapy.

However, the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming...