Phage Therapy

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing global health threat, making common infections, such as urinary tract infections (UTIs), increasingly difficult to treat. Many UTI‑causing bacteria, such as Escherichia coli, are becoming resistant to standard antibiotics, leading to recurrent infections and serious complications like urosepsis.

As antibiotics lose effectiveness, our research group is exploring alternatives such as bacteriophage therapy. Phages are viruses that specifically target bacteria, and early clinical cases show promising results, particularly for patients who do not respond to antibiotics. However, more research is needed before this approach becomes widely available.

Because phages are highly specific to particular bacterial strains, successful treatment requires precise diagnostic testing and careful matching. Advances in diagnostics and growing awareness among clinicians are helping pave the way for broader use of phage therapy, while regulatory systems are gradually adapting to support this emerging treatment option.

Our research focuses on investigating the clinical utility of bacteriophage therapy for bacterial infections, with the goal of identifying the criteria and factors critical for effective and sustainable treatment. We focus primarily on urinary tract infections (UTIs) and the leading uropathogen, Escherichia coli (UPEC). Some of our past and current projects include:

Developing engineered bacteriophages against UPEC in collaboration with researchers at the ETH (CAUTIphage)

Generating high-quality evidence for phage therapy through randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and patient registries

The first RCT using phage therapy for UTI (Leitner et al., 2021)

An upcoming phase Ib/IIa trial for the safety and efficacy of engineered phages for the treatment of catheter-associated UTI (UROphage trial)

The Phagistry, the international registry for patients treated with phage therapy (www.phagistry.org)

Deepening our knowledge of the microbiological and immunological aspects of urinary pathologies through the longitudinal clinical MILUT study and the mTORUS project