Outbreaks of foodborne diseases carried by bacteria can be a nuisance at best, and deadly at worst. Researchers are looking into novel ways to keep food safe. One way to destroy these pathogens is with more pathogens.
Bacteriophages are viruses that specifically attack bacteria. These phages, as researchers call them, have evolved alongside bacteria and become very good at what they do.
Scientists are most interested in lytic phages – viruses that inject their DNA into a bacterium and then hijack the cell’s machinery to make new copies of the virus. The copies eventually burst through bacterium’s membrane, killing it, and attack neighboring cells.
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Phages are a hopeful alternative. “Phage therapy was the big thing in the [19]20s and 30s,” said Jason Gill, a microbiologist at Texas A&M University in College Station, who was not involved in the study.