Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Feature
  • Published:

Old dogma, new tricks—21st Century phage therapy

As antibiotic resistant bacteria threaten a public health crisis, biotechnology is turning to bacteriophages, nature's tiniest viruses. But can phage therapy overcome its historical baggage?

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Phage life cycle.

R. Henretta

Figure 2: Phage pioneers.
Figure 3: Lysis to kill.

References

  1. US Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration and the US National Institutes of Health. A Public Health Action Plan to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance (CDC, FDA & NIH, June, 2000) (http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/ actionplan/aractionplan.pdf).

  2. S. Tslodras et al. Linezolid resistance in a clinical isolate of Staphylococcus aureus. Lancet 358, 207–208 (2001).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. G.M. Eliopoulos, et al. Characterization of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium isolates from the United States and their susceptibility in vitro to dalfopristin-quinupristin. Antimicrobial Agents Chemother. 42, 1088–1092 (1998).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Fox, J. Concerns raised over declining antiinfective R&D. Nat. Biotechnol. 21, 1255–1256 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Scholl, D. et al. Bacteriophage K1-5 encodes two different tail fiber proteins, allowing it to infect and replicate on both K1 and K5 strains of Escherichia coli. J. Virol. 75, 2509–2515 (2001).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Thiel, K. Old dogma, new tricks—21st Century phage therapy. Nat Biotechnol 22, 31–36 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0104-31

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0104-31

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing