Viruses can work where antibiotics don’t – new research tells us more about how they fight bacteria
- Written by Nils Birkholz, Postdoctoral Fellow in Molecular Microbiology, University of Otago
As the globe faces a rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria – making traditional antibiotics ineffective – specific viruses could offer a solution.
Viruses called bacteriophages, or phages, target bacteria but can’t infect humans or other higher organisms. Phages inject their DNA into the bacterial cell, multiply to large numbers...





