Bacteriophages-Versatile Tools of The Past and The Future |Biomedgrid

Bacteriophages are ubiquitous viruses which infect bacteria. They have been employed in studies that helped us understand the replication of viruses, their genetics, the structure of DNA and RNA and numerous other concepts that are now staples of modern biomedical sciences. Due to the need of finding an effective treatment against infectious diseases, phages were studied and tried as a treatment, but such prospects have gradually been abandoned as antibiotics became available. They have been used as a model organism of molecular biology, and phage therapy has gained renewed interest since the beginning of the antimicrobial resistance crisis. Phages have the potential to become narrow-spectrum modulators of the microbiome, eliminating only pathogenic species of bacteria, without causing dysbiosis, which is a concept now linked to numerous diseases. Other important applications of phages include phage display, the creation of different vaccines against pathogens or cancerous cells or as drugdelivery agents.