Amid the antibiotic resistance crisis, the century-old practice of phage therapy, the use of bacterial viruses to treat bacterial infections, has gained renewed attention. Despite extensive research and clear-cut advantages over antibiotics, phage therapy has yet to gain momentum. This is primarily due to remaining limitations, e.g., the time-consuming process of identifying suitable phages and limited in-vivo efficacy.

 In the EU-funded project Phage-Pro, we will explore a new technology to overcome the shortcomings of traditional phage therapy. Unlike the conventional use of lytic phages, we will capitalize on prophages – viruses that integrate into bacterial genomes capable of excision and replication. By integrating prophages into safe carrier strains, originating from probiotics, we plan to unlock three pivotal benefits, (1) rapid identification of suitable phages using advanced machine learning, (2) sustained in-vivo efficacy, and (3) the synergistic advantage of phage killing and pathogen competitive exclusion imposed by the probiotic.

https://www.lmu.de/en/newsroom/news-overview/news/six-new-erc-grants-at-lmu.html
https://www.lmu.de/en/newsroom/news-overview/news/six-new-erc-grants-at-lmu.html