Sixty seconds on . . . bacteriophages
BMJ 2019; 365 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l2183 (Published 13 May 2019) Cite this as: BMJ 2019;365:l2183
- Susan Mayor
- London, UK
A new weapon against resistance?
The potential for bacteriophages—viruses that target and kill specific bacteria—as a way to defeat antibiotic resistant infections took a leap forward last week when researchers reported significant recovery in the first patient to be treated with phages for a mycobacterial infection.1
Back to the past?
You could say so. Phages were first explored more than a century ago, but were ditched in favour of antibiotics. Their resurgence is a response to the shrinking ammunition against antibiotic resistant bacteria. Over the past two years, phages successfully treated a patient with a multidrug resistant …
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