How Bacteriophages may Change Future Medicine: My Research

Bacteria, one of the most diverse, most abundant organisms on this world. Some bacteria are helpful, mainly assisting with human digestion. Without these helpful bacteria, our cells would have a much harder time digesting tougher proteins, making the digestive process longer. With good bacteria, come bad bacteria. Bad bacteria cause infections, and there are so many of these bacteria, that they usually overshadow good bacteria. To treat a bacterial infection, we would use antibiotics. Antibiotics work by dismantling the cell membrane of bacteria, but something that also has a cell membrane are human cells. If there is a bacterial infection, then antibiotics will kill off the bacteria, but it won't stop at bacteria; it will also kill human cells. It is hard to make something that would differentiate between human and bacteria, but nature already made something for that: Bacteriophages. A tiny virus that doesn't affect humans, only bacteria. It works the same way, takes over a cell and makes that cell produce more viruses, and the cycle continues. Bacteriophages are special, they only have one target, bacteria. Bacteriophages are specific to only one type of bacteria, and there are almost the same amount of bacteriophages to bacteria. If we release a bunch of bacteriophages into a bacterial infection, the bacteriophages would come out victorious and no human cells will be damaged. Bacteriophages also will evolve at the same rate as bacteria, so the bacteriophage will always be ready to fight bacteria. Even though it seems perfect, bacteriophages are still out of control of humans, they are not manmade, and so anything can happen. With more and more research, eventually bacterial infections will be less and less harmful.