9: Phage Therapy

Maybe you’ve had the experience of being sick, and your doctor struggling to find the right antibiotics to treat your infection. Or maybe you had to restart your treatment with different antibiotics because the first ones didn’t work.Situations like this are becoming more and more common, as antibiotic-resistant bacteria continue to spread. At the same time, new antibiotics are being developed very slowly.So the question is: could there be another solution?Another way to treat bacterial infections?One possibility is to use the natural predators of bacteria: viruses that specifically infect bacteria and destroy them. And what might surprise you is that this is not some futuristic idea. It’s an approach that has already been used to successfully treat patients, and it was developed more than a hundred years ago.As you probably guessed by now (and, well… as the title says), today’s episode is all about phage therapy.*If you enjoyed this episode and want to stay updated on more virology stories, please follow @virology_podcast or @karolina_science on Instagram :). The podcast is also available in Czech as “Podcast o virech”.*Sources: L. Zeldovich, 2024: The Living Medicine • A. Oromí-Bosch, 2023: Developing Phage Therapy That Overcomes the Evolution of Bacterial Resistance • S. A. Strathdee, 2019: The Perfect Predator • S. Uyttebroek, 2022: Safety and efficacy of phage therapy in difficult-to-treat infections: a systematic review • S. Arientová, 2025: Successful systemic phage therapy for implant-associated MRSA spondylodiscitis • S. A. Strathdee, 2023: Phage therapy: From biological mechanisms to future directions • G. F. Hatfull, 2021: Phage Therapy for Antibiotic-Resistant Bacterial Infections • Q. Yang, 2023: Regulations of phage therapy across the world • J. P. Pirnay, 2018: The Magistral Phage • R. Larcher, 2025: Phage therapy in patients with urinary tract infections: a systematic review • S. Djebara, 2025: Implementation challenges of personalised phage therapy • L. H. Lang, 2006: FDA approves use of bacteriophages to be added to meat and poultry products • D. A. Schofield, 2011: 'Bioluminescent' reporter phage for the detection of Category A bacterial pathogens