# What Are Bacteriophages?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-bacteriophages/128286>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 13, 2002, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-bacteriophages/128286 "2002-09-13T14:24:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-bacteriophages/128286/1 "2002-09-13T14:24:25Z")

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With all the talk about how modern antibiotics are fast becoming useless (due to the rise of resistant bacteria), these are organisms of interest. According to what I hear, Russian scientists have developed drugs from bacteriophages, which are effective in destroying many harmful bacteria. Exactly what are these organisms, and why are they harmless to the human body? Can they become dangerous to us? Finally, can bacteriophages be used to fight cancers?

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**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-bacteriophages/128286/2 "2002-09-13T14:48:13Z")

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Looks to me like it’s mostly theoretical so far.

1. 

[http://www.crees.bham.ac.uk/research/biopharm/worldresearch.htm](http://www.crees.bham.ac.uk/research/biopharm/worldresearch.htm)

1. 

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/specials/sheffield\_99/448209.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/specials/sheffield_99/448209.stm)

1. 

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2125200.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2125200.stm)

And, as of Wednesday…“This page last changed on Wednesday, September 11, 2002”

[http://www.med.sc.edu:85/mayer/phage.htm](http://www.med.sc.edu:85/mayer/phage.htm)

> [@](#):
>
> At one time it was thought that the use of bacteriophage might be an effective way to treat bacterial infections, but it soon became apparent that phage are quickly removed from the body and thus, were of little clinical value. However, bacteriophage are used in the diagnostic laboratory for the identification of pathogenic bacteria (phage typing). Although phage typing is not used in the routine clinical laboratory, it is used in reference laboratories for epidemiological purposes. Recently, new interest has developed in the possible use of bacteriophage for treatment of bacterial infections and in prophylaxis. Whether bacteriophage will be used in clinical medicine remains to be determined.

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-bacteriophages/128286/3 "2002-09-13T15:12:52Z")

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I read an article (NewScientist, I think) about bacteriophages being produced and used as an alternative to antibiotics in Russia; because they are recognised as hostile by the human body, they can’t really be injected or anything, but apparently they were effective in topical treatement of infected wounds.

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**Author:** ![light\_strand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a6a055/32.png) [@light\_strand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/light_strand)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-bacteriophages/128286/4 "2002-09-13T15:25:08Z")

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Bacteriophages are viruses that attack bacteria.

Here is a cool site that shows the T4 bacteriophage in action. [http://www.cellsalive.com/phage.htm](http://www.cellsalive.com/phage.htm)

Bacteriophages are useful for a couple of reasons. One is that there are a good way of transferring genetic material from one bacteria to another, and the other is that they can kill bacteria using a lysing enzyme, and may be a good potential antibiotic. In fact, right now there is some good potential for using their enzymes against anthrax ([http://www.forbes.com/business/healthcare/2002/08/23/0823anthrax.html](http://www.forbes.com/business/healthcare/2002/08/23/0823anthrax.html) )

Since bacteriophages are species specific, they aren’t dangerous to humans.

They probably won’t be useful for cancer cells, since cancer cells are human cells and not the natural targets for the viruses.