Question: What do you think about the use of bacteriophage to kill bacteria that have become immune to antibiotics?

Lucy Kelly answered on 10 Mar 2020:

This is what my PhD is in! Antibiotic resistance is going to be a huge problem in the future if we carry on like we are now. I think bacteriophage are a promising alternative, they have been used as a treatment for years in countries like Russia and Georgia and the western world is now beginning to catch up. There have been a few cases where bacteriophage have been used in humans recently, where they were shown to work against antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which is really exciting! I don’t think we’re quite ready to use them as an alternative to antibiotics yet, there’s lots more research to be done on the safety side, but we’re getting there! One thing that is interesting is that bacteriophage could be used alongside antibiotics to kill the bacteria, as both treatments seem to work really well together.