Bacteriophage Therapy against Infectious Diseases

Dear Colleagues,

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has become one of the greatest global threats to human health, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for global action to tackle this crisis with the utmost urgency. If no proactive solutions are found, by 2050 it is estimated that AMR will cost the world an additional 10 million lives every year and incur a cumulative loss of USD 100 trillion. The world now faces an enormous and growing threat from the emergence of bacteria that are resistant to almost all current antibiotics. Worryingly, the antibiotic discovery pipeline is depleted, with few novel classes of antibiotics available in the near future for deadly ‘superbugs’. Therefore, alternative therapeutic options are urgently required to treat life-threatening bacterial infections. Bacteriophages (phages) are natural bacterial predators and their therapeutic use has several advantages over antibiotic therapy, including host-specificity, self-amplification, and low toxicity in humans. First applied in the late 1910s and then forgotten in the 1940s with the advent of antibiotics, phage therapy has been used to treat bacterial infections in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. However, the looming threat of AMR has led to a renewed global interest in phage therapy. Phages are unaffected by antibiotic resistance and are highly effective against Gram-negative superbugs. Recent studies have also demonstrated that phage therapy is effective against bacterial infections in mice and patients; in some cases, more effective than antibiotics in preventing the infection mortality. The purpose of this Special Issue is to bring together phage biologists, pharmacologists, microbiologists, and regulators to showcase their latest cutting-edge research in bacteriophage therapy. This Special Issue aims to publish original research and review articles focusing on the application of phages against infectious diseases, with special interest in phage therapy, phage pharmacokinetics/pharmacodymaics, phage–host–pathogen interactions, phage–antibiotic combination therapies and phage delivery systems.

Prof. Dr. Pan Tao
Dr. Yu-Wei Lin
Dr. Jinxin Zhao
Guest Editors

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