> If the new approaches work, phage therapy could eventually become a mainstream option for treating bacterial infections. Phages were the mainstream option fo

> If the new approaches work, phage therapy could eventually become a mainstream option for treating bacterial infections. Phages were the mainstream option for treating serious antibiotic infections in the USSR prior to 1990, but this was never commercialized in the west (AIUI it couldn't be patented because of the glaringly obvious prior art so nobody bothered) and disappeared after 1991 — collateral damage due to the end of communism (you could make more profits selling antibiotics to Russian hospitals). It's kind of ironic that this technique is now being rediscovered, although the synergy with the arrival of cheap nanopore RNA/DNA sequencers should be noted (these devices make it much easier to rapidly identify the precise strain of pathogen causing an infection, and thereby choose the correct phage).