ArticleClinical medicine & research2021
An Early History of Phage Therapy in the United States: Is it Time to Reconsider?
Article in Clinical medicine & research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed.
- Bacteriophage Lysins as Programmable Antimicrobials: Mechanisms, Engineering, and Translational Advances.Probiotics and antimicrobial proteins · 2026Review
- Bacteriophages as Therapeutic Agents for Pulmonary Infections: From Biological Principles to Clinical Applications.Pharmaceutics · 2026Review
- Phage therapy for treatment of bacterial vaginosis.Archives of microbiology · 2026Review
- Staphylococcal phages as agents of evolution and innovation: From gene flow to next-generation therapeutics.Genetics and molecular biology · 2026Article
- Mapping the science-technology translational landscape in biomedicine.Nature biotechnology · 2026Article
- Advances in combating antimicrobial resistance in MRSA: a comprehensive review on nanotechnology and phage therapy.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2025Review
- Exploring phage-host interactions inMicrobiology spectrum · 2025Article
- The future of phage therapy in the USA.Trends in molecular medicine · 2025Review
- A Century of Bacteriophages: Insights, Applications, and Current Utilization.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Engineered Phage-Guided Nanotherapeutic Systems for Precision Antibacterial Therapy: Hacking Bacterial Resistance Mechanisms.Pharmaceutics · 2025Review
- Augmenting phage therapy using green nanotechnology for promising infection control, wound healing and devoiding phage resistance in MDR Pseudomonas aeruginosa.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Characterization and Genome Comparison of Bacteriophage KKU62-1 Infecting Hypervirulent Streptococcus agalactiae ST283.Current microbiology · 2025Article
- Phage Therapy for Urinary Tract Infections: Progress and Challenges Ahead.International urogynecology journal · 2025Review
- Preclinical characterization and in silico safety assessment of three virulent bacteriophages targeting carbapenem-resistant uropathogenic Escherichia coli.International microbiology : the official journal of the Spanish Society for Microbiology · 2024Article
- Fighting fire with fire: using infectious agents to treat persistent infection.Future microbiology · 2024Review
- The Evolution of Phage Therapy: A Comprehensive Review of Current Applications and Future Innovations.Cureus · 2024Review
- Two novel phages, Klebsiella phage GADU21 and Escherichia phage GADU22, from the urine samples of patients with urinary tract infection.Virus genes · 2024Article
- Genetic Engineering of Therapeutic Phages Using Type III CRISPR-Cas Systems.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2024Article
- Safety Properties ofFoods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Bioengineering Approaches to Fight against Orthopedic Biomaterials Related-Infections.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Frederick William Twort and Felix d'Hérelle independently discovered bacteriophages in 1915 and 1917, respectively. This led to the early trials of using bacteriophages to treat infectious diseases worldwide. The earliest reported use of bacteriophages therapeutically in the United States was in 1922. With the subsequent discovery of antibiotics in the 1940s, and because of disappointing results of phage therapy in the next decade, use of bacteriophages as therapeutic agents declined in western countries. This paper addresses two questions in the field: what is the historical record of the successes and failures of phage therapy in the United States and, what led to abandoning phage therapy in the United States? We examined the literature from 1915 to 1965, and we present a numerical analysis of the papers published during that period. We report key historical factors leading to a decline in the use of phage therapy in the United States by the 1950s. Since bacteriophages were first used therapeutically, several changes have occurred: increased antimicrobial drug resistance and a better knowledge of the biology of bacteriophages are important examples. Early assessments leading to the rejection of phage therapy in the United States were perhaps appropriate. However, it is time to reconsider the role of bacteriophages in treatment of bacterial infections.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.