Also: bacteriophages, bacteria-killing viruses
Bacteriophages are viruses that infect only bacteria. Phage therapy uses them against infections, especially ones resistant to antibiotics.
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Kortright and colleagues reviewed phage therapy as a renewed approach to antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
As reported in: Kortright, Chan, Koff et al. (2019). Phage Therapy: A Renewed Approach to Combat Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria. Cell Host & Microbe. doi:10.1016/j.chom.2019.01.014
Schooley and colleagues treated a patient with a resistant Acinetobacter infection using custom phage cocktails.
Publisher update notice: correction
As reported in: Schooley, Biswas, Gill et al. (2017). Development and Use of Personalized Bacteriophage-Based Therapeutic Cocktails To Treat a Patient with a Disseminated Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii Infection. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. doi:10.1128/AAC.00954-17
Dedrick and colleagues used genetically engineered phages to treat a teenager with a drug-resistant Mycobacterium infection.
Built / tested: engineered phage cocktail
As reported in: Dedrick, Guerrero-Bustamante, Garlena et al. (2019). Engineered bacteriophages for treatment of a patient with a disseminated drug-resistant Mycobacterium abscessus. Nature Medicine. doi:10.1038/s41591-019-0437-z
Jault and colleagues ran a clinical trial of a phage cocktail on infected burn wounds; it worked more slowly than standard care.
As reported in: Jault, Leclerc, Jennes et al. (2019). Efficacy and tolerability of a cocktail of bacteriophages to treat burn wounds infected by Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PhagoBurn): a randomised, controlled, double-blind phase 1/2 trial. The Lancet Infectious Diseases. doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(18)30482-1