Reinventing the fight against bacteria, one phage at a time.

Bacteriohages in aquaculture: What should we know? Phage therapy – a natural alternative to antibiotics – is gaining ground in aquaculture                         This year marks the centenary of the first time that the French-Canadian microbiologist Félix d’Herelle began using specific viruses to combat bacterial diseases. The use of these bacteriophages, or “phages”, became known as phage therapy, and research on them has continued up to the present day. A brief look at history reminds us that, in 1919, Félix d’Herelle used phages to treat dysentery in children, and two years later Richard Bruybogne and Joseph Maisin published the first article demonstrating the effectiveness of phage therapy in treating Staphylococcus infections. In the following decades, studies on phages flourished in Eastern Europe. However, in most of the Western world, phage therapy did not enjoy the same success – possibly due to limited scientific int...