Fighting infection with phages (image courtesy NIH)
Antimicrobial resistance is a serious threat to modern medicine: As MRSA and other bacteria become immune to our most common antibiotics, researchers must develop new ways to fight these pathogens. One of these alternatives actually involves viruses called bacteriophages, which prey on bacteria. Though bacteriophages (or “phages” for short) are not currently approved for widespread human use within the United States, they are being used under Emergency Investigative New Drug FDA clearance and could one day be used in conjunction with antibiotics to treat the most stubborn bacterial infections.