A Virus Found in Wastewater Beat Back a Woman’s ‘Zombie’ Bacteria

But Cole’s progress was short-lived. Her blood infection returned, and her doctors determined the phage-antibiotic combination was no longer effective. She passed away from pneumonia in March 2022, seven months after phage therapy was stopped. Cole’s case demonstrates both the hope and limitations of phage therapy. The problem this time wasn’t just bacterial evolution. When […]

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In the War on Bacteria, It’s Time to Call in the Phages

Ella Balasa was 26 when she realized the routine medical treatments that sustained her were no longer working. The slender lab assistant had lived since childhood with the side effects of cystic fibrosis, an inherited disease that turns mucus in the lungs and other organs into a thick, sticky goo that gives pathogens a place […]

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This Gulp of Engineered Bacteria Is Meant to Treat Disease

In the muddy trenches of World War I, thousands of soldiers on both sides fell ill with dysentery, a diarrheal disease often spread by contaminated water. Curiously, one German soldier deployed in the Balkans didn’t become sick when the rest of his comrades did. When scientist Alfred Nissle isolated a strain of E. coli from […]

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After Hurricane Ian’s Floods, the Flesh-Eating Bacteria

In September, Hurricane Ian smashed into the southwest coast of Florida, bringing with it a storm surge that reached 13 feet in the coastal town of Fort Myers. Warm, brackish Gulf water inundated homes and businesses as well as sewers, wastewater pumps, and septic tanks. As the torrential winds and rain mixed everything together into […]

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These Nanobots Can Swim Around a Wound and Kill Bacteria

Next, they proved that the bots could swim. In test tubes containing urea, the microbots reached speeds of up to 4 micrometers per second—“one or two body lengths per second,” says Sánchez. (Humans also swim around one body-length per second.) Then it was time to show that the bots could also kill. But the team […]

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