Antibiotic-resistant bacteria — superbugs — are medical monsters of our own design. Honed by years of antibiotic misuse and overuse, superbugs demand new weapons to treat them. Bacteria-hunting viruses called phages have emerged as potentially potent tools in this fight, successfully sicced on vicious infections in a psychologist who caught a superbug on vacation and a London cystic fibrosis patient. The cases are the most dramatic moments yet in a Western renaissance for phage therapy.
Over a century since its debut, phage therapy is having a moment. And researchers are hoping that the moment lasts long enough for this to become not just a reliable weapon in our war against superbugs, but also potentially a tool that could do anything from delivering cancer drugs to parts of the body, to making our food supply safer. Just a few decades ago, phages were mostly forgotten in the West —…
