Prompt

As a scientist, describe the main experiment you would like to see performed before phage therapy is approved for human use. What are the risks involved with using phage therapy?

Proving the Safety of Bacteriophage Therapy

For now, Intralytix’s experiments on mice and their bacteriophage application to commercial chickens has yielded generally good results. This animal model does not seem good enough for humans but the risk of running an experiment on humans and causing any long-term effects isn’t good. I’d take their experiments a step further by introducing the bacteriophages to artificial anatomical systems, similar to how drugs for females can now be tested with EVATAR (an artificial women’s reproductive system). These experiments can safely give insight to the way bacteriophages interact with organs, and how this will affect the organs over time. Risks still exist such as lysogenic phages that can mutate, so a selected bactiophage should be screened thoroughly and tested for any changes in their replication.