The first antibiotics made once-deadly infections curable, and their early developers were lauded with a Nobel. But these miracle drugs soon revealed their Achilles heel: When antibiotics are overused, they grow less effective as the bacteria they're designed to kill evolve to have escape strategies. This flaw has prompted scientists to seek alternative solutions.
One alternative to antibiotics is phage therapy, which harnesses viruses to attack bacterial cells. Conceived over a century ago, phage therapy fell to the wayside as antibiotics rose to prominence, but recently, the field has seen a resurgence. In "The Living Medicine: How a Lifesaving Cure Was Nearly Lost — and Why It Will Rescue Us When Antibiotics Fail" (St. Martin's Press, 2024), science journalist Lina Zeldovich recounts the complex history of phage therapy and its proponents while also highlighting how the treatment could save humanity in the future.
