Exploring the possibilities of bacteriophages for tuberculosis

Exploring the possibilities of bacteriophages for tuberculosis Bacteriophages have long offered prospects for treating bacterial infections. Is it time to use phages to control tuberculosis? Professor Graham F. Hatfull explores this. Bacteriophages – phages for short – are viruses that infect bacteria. They were discovered about 100 years ago and are prevalent throughout the biosphere and indeed throughout our bodies. Phages infect and kill bacteria as they replicate, and because of this antibacterial action, they have long been recognized as having therapeutic potential. This potential was largely side-lined once broad-acting antibiotics were discovered, but the troubling emergence of antimicrobial drug resistance has prompted the revisitation of bacteriophage therapeutics.