Reinventing the fight against bacteria,
one phage at a time.

UCLA Samueli Announces Class of 2025 Awardees and Commencement Student Presenters Every year, the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering honors new graduates who have made special contributions and have distinguished accomplishments. The following is an overview of the 2025 schoolwide award recipients and presenters. Additional class of 2025 awardees are listed on the school’s commencement awardee page. Photo : (c) https://samueli.ucla.edu/ucla-samueli-announces-2025-awardees/ HARRY M. SHOWMAN PRIZE (graduate) Yanxi (Steven) Yang Chemical Engineering Doctor of Philosophy, Spring 2025 Yanxi (Steven) Yang is graduating with a Ph.D. in chemical engineering. During his time at UCLA, Yang has been an ambassador for biomedical engineering, highlighting the discipline’s real-world impacts. His podcast, “Phage Therapy Today,” aims to bridge the information gap between academia and clinical practice by exploring the potential of bioengineered drug delivery. The program has garnered more than 7,000 ...

Researchers at Yale University have reported promising results using phage therapy to treat drug-resistant bacterial infections in adults with cystic fibrosis, a disease where chronic lung infections remain one of the leading causes of respiratory decline and mortality. Published in Nature Medicine, the study highlights a personalized bacteriophage strategy designed not only to eliminate pathogenic bacteria, but also to force surviving bacterial populations into less virulent and more antibiotic-sensitive states. The research focused primarily on Pseudomonas aeruginosa, one of the most problematic pathogens in cystic fibrosis patients. This bacterium is highly adapted to the mucus-rich lung environment characteristic of the disease and frequently develops multidrug resistance after years of repeated antibiotic exposure. Once chronic colonization becomes established, treatment options become increasingly limited. Jon Koff, MD, with a patient Credit: Robert A. Lisak, Source :  Yale ...

Reigniting the War on Superbugs: The Global Rise of Phage Therapy as a Market and Medical Breakthrough 1. Introduction: A Renaissance in Microbial Medicine As antimicrobial resistance (AMR) reaches catastrophic levels worldwide, the search for viable alternatives to conventional antibiotics has become one of the most pressing priorities in global health. Once overlooked by Western medicine in the post-antibiotic era, phage therapy is experiencing a scientific and commercial revival. Bacteriophages—viruses that specifically infect and destroy bacteria—are no longer seen as relics of early 20th-century microbiology. Instead, they are emerging as precision-engineered therapeutics capable of addressing a medical crisis that conventional antibiotics can no longer control. According to a recent report by InsightAce Analytic Pvt. Ltd., the global phage therapy market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.50% between 2025 and 2034 . This rapid expansion is drive...

Danish biotechnology company SNIPR Biome has reached an important milestone in precision antimicrobial medicine with the first dosing of a cancer patient in its Phase 1b clinical trial evaluating SNIPR001, a CRISPR-engineered bacteriophage therapy designed to selectively eliminate antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli. The trial represents one of the most advanced clinical applications yet of programmable phage therapeutics and highlights the growing convergence between synthetic biology, microbiome science, and infectious disease medicine. The study focuses on a particularly vulnerable patient population: individuals with hematological malignancies undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Although these procedures are often lifesaving, they also produce profound immunosuppression, leaving patients highly susceptible to severe bacterial infections during periods of neutropenia. In this setting, fluoroquinolone-resistant E. coli has become a major clinical concern, accountin...

For decades, one of the greatest barriers preventing phage therapy from entering mainstream Western medicine has not been scientific uncertainty alone, but regulatory ambiguity. While bacteriophages have repeatedly demonstrated therapeutic potential against multidrug-resistant infections, the absence of clear pharmaceutical pathways has slowed investment, clinical trials, and industrial development across much of Europe and North America. In June 2025, the United Kingdom took a significant step toward changing this landscape when the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency published the country’s first official guidance dedicated specifically to bacteriophage therapies. Bacteriophages attaching to bacterium. Source :  UK Government MHRA Guidance on Phage Therapy The publication marks a turning point for the British phage ecosystem. More importantly, it reflects a broader global transition in which regulatory institutions are beginning to treat phage therapy not as a...

Diabetic foot infections represent one of the most difficult challenges in modern infectious disease medicine. Beyond their immediate clinical burden, they embody a convergence of chronic inflammation, vascular insufficiency, impaired immune function, and antimicrobial resistance. For millions of diabetic patients worldwide, a seemingly localized ulcer can evolve into deep tissue infection, osteomyelitis, sepsis, and ultimately limb amputation. Despite advances in wound management and antibiotic therapy, treatment outcomes remain inconsistent, particularly when bacterial biofilms and poor tissue perfusion limit antimicrobial penetration. Against this backdrop, bacteriophage therapy is emerging as a potentially transformative approach for chronic diabetic wound infections. Source :  Hadassah International Report A recent clinical study conducted by researchers from the Hadassah Medical Organization in collaboration with Portuguese investigators explored the safety profile of a bacte...

As antimicrobial resistance continues to reshape modern medicine, military health systems are increasingly confronting a reality that civilian healthcare has only recently begun to acknowledge at scale: bacterial infections can become strategic threats. Combat injuries, prolonged deployments, austere environments, and the growing prevalence of multidrug-resistant organisms create conditions in which conventional antibiotics are often insufficient. In this context, bacteriophage therapy is no longer viewed merely as an experimental curiosity. Within the United States military research ecosystem, it is rapidly evolving into a serious biomedical platform designed to protect operational readiness in future conflicts. A major milestone in this transformation was recently highlighted through the completion of a six-year research initiative funded by the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs. Beginning in 2019, the program brought together the Naval Medical Research Command, the ...