Phage Therapy

“Partners in Slime”
What is Phage Therapy?

Phage therapy is the use of

bacteriophages to treat bacterial
infections

• Bacteriophages viruses that

infect bacterial cells

American Association for the Advancement of Science

 Antibiotics
Wikipedia

Penicillin
• An amazing discovery

• A drug used to combat bacterial infections.

• Complex Chemicals that kill bacteria in a variety of ways Wikipedia

Amoxicillin

• Produced by microorganisms

Wikipedia

Azithromycin
 Antibiotic Resistant
Diseases
Causes
• Overuse

• Misuse

Effects

• Use of dangerous “last resort” antibiotics.

• Vancomycin

• Diseases resistant to medical treatment

Public Health Image Library

Antibiotics vs Phage Therapy
Antibiotics Phage Therapy
• Better at traveling • Plentiful variation
through the body
• Can disrupt biofilms
• Side effects
• Almost no side effects
• Not capable of
being manipulated • Manipulatable

• Not specific • Extremely high level of Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews

specificity
 Bibliography
Work
• “Drug of Last Resort.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 25 June 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_of_last_resort.

• “How Phage Therapy Kills Superbugs: Weaponizing Viruses to Fight Infections.” Yale Medicine, 18 Nov.
2019, www.yalemedicine.org/stories/phage-therapy/.

• Loc-Carrillo, Catherine, and Stephen T Abedon. “Pros and Cons of Phage Therapy.” Bacteriophage, Landes
Bioscience, Mar. 2011, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3278648/.

Photos
• https://mmbr.asm.org/content/67/1/86/figures-only
• https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2013/01/09/science.1231887?versioned=true
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoxicillin
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azithromycin
• https://phil.cdc.gov/Details.aspx?pid=19059