The Virus That Kills Drug-Resistant Superbugs
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria kill 23,000 people every year in the United States, and the United Nations estimates that by 2050, more people will die from antibiotic-resistant infections than currently die from cancer. Discovered 100 years ago, bacteriophages—viruses that eat bacteria—might provide an answer. But phage therapy has only been approved for use on humans in the former Soviet Union. Motherboard travels to Georgia to meet the doctors using phage therapy today, and meets with the American scientists trying to normalize phage therapy in the United States.
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