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

Synthetic Biology and the Rise of Engineered Phages: Precision Weapons Against Resistant Bacteria Artistic View As antimicrobial resistance continues to surge globally, the search for innovative therapeutic strategies has never been more urgent. Traditional antibiotics, once heralded as miracle drugs, are losing their efficacy at an alarming rate. In this context, synthetic biology—a field at the intersection of engineering and life sciences—is revolutionizing the way we design therapies against bacterial infections. One of its most promising frontiers is the development of engineered bacteriophages: viruses specifically reprogrammed to target and destroy pathogenic bacteria with unmatched precision. Unlike classical phage therapy, which relies on naturally occurring viruses, synthetic biology enables researchers to design tailor-made phages that overcome many of the limitations inherent to wild-type viruses, including resistance, host specificity, and regulatory unpredictability. Th...

Bacteriophages and their use in combating antimicrobial resistance 17 February 2025, Republishing an article of (c) WHO visible here https://www.who.int/europe/news-room/fact-sheets/item/bacteriophages-and-their-use-in-combating-antimicrobial-resistance Key facts Bacteriophages (phages) are viruses that selectively target and kill bacteria. They are the most abundant commonly occurring natural entities, playing crucial roles in regulating bacterial populations and influencing microbial ecosystems. Phages are useful as they can destroy bacteria resistant to drugs such as antibiotics. Phages infect their bacterial hosts with great specificity. They do not infect human cells. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a serious global threat to our ability to treat bacterial infections. New antibiotics have often proved difficult and expensive to develop. This has led to an interest in an older approach to treating microbial infections by using phages. Phage therapy can be a promising tool ...

Trapping a Cure: How Optical Nanotweezers Are Accelerating Precision Phage Therapy In the escalating battle against antibiotic resistance, bacteriophages — viruses that infect and destroy bacteria — have re-emerged as a promising therapeutic alternative. But while their specificity is one of their greatest strengths, it also presents a major challenge: how to quickly identify the right phage for the right infection. Now, researchers at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) are leveraging cutting-edge physics to solve this problem with extraordinary precision. Using advanced nanophotonic techniques, the EPFL team has developed what they call “optical nanotweezers” — a method that uses focused laser light to trap and analyze individual phages in real time . This tool doesn’t just improve phage selection. It revolutionizes it , transforming what was once a slow, trial-and-error process into a highly selective, data-driven procedure measurable in minutes. Artistic view The...

Revolutionizing Phage Therapy: High-Throughput Platforms for Personalized Bacterial Targeting Artistic View As multidrug-resistant bacterial infections continue to challenge global health systems, the urgency for precise, rapid, and adaptable therapeutic alternatives has never been greater. Among the most promising solutions is the revival of bacteriophage (phage) therapy, now significantly enhanced by innovative high-throughput screening technologies that tailor treatment to each patient's infection profile. The Problem: Precision in an Age of Resistance One of the longstanding challenges in phage therapy has been its host specificity : phages that kill one bacterial strain may have no effect on another, even within the same species. Traditional phage matching relies on slow culturing methods and empirical testing, delaying critical treatment and limiting phage therapy’s clinical viability. In an age of rapid-onset sepsis and pan-resistant infections, such limitations are una...

CRISPR-Engineered Phages in Clinical Trials: A Precision Strike Against Antibiotic-Resistant UTIs Artistic view In the face of mounting antibiotic resistance, a new generation of antimicrobial therapy is emerging—not from a chemistry lab, but from the convergence of bacteriophage biology and CRISPR gene editing . Among the pioneers in this field is Locus Biosciences , a North Carolina-based biotech company that has launched the world’s first clinical trial using CRISPR-enhanced phages to treat urinary tract infections (UTIs) caused by Escherichia coli . This innovation represents a fundamental leap forward in the application of precision medicine to bacterial infections. The Clinical Challenge: E. coli and the UTI Burden Urinary tract infections affect more than 150 million people worldwide each year. In the United States alone, they account for over 8 million doctor visits annually , with E. coli responsible for up to 80–90% of all cases. While most UTIs are treatable with sta...

A New Era for Precision Antimicrobials: AI-Guided Phage Therapy Targets Resistant Infections In a landmark achievement for the field of precision medicine, a consortium of French researchers has unveiled a novel artificial intelligence model capable of matching bacteriophages—viruses that infect bacteria—with specific pathogenic bacterial strains based solely on their genomic profiles. The study, published in Nature Microbiology on October 31, 2024, marks a major step toward making phage therapy scalable, predictable, and clinically viable against multidrug-resistant bacterial infections. Artist's impression of Aude Berkheim working in her laboratory This breakthrough arrives at a critical moment. As antibiotic resistance accelerates into a global public health crisis, alternatives are urgently needed. Phage therapy, first developed over a century ago by Félix d’Hérelle, is now being reimagined through the lens of artificial intelligence and genomic medicine. The Problem: Resis...