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Abstract

With the emergence of widespread antibiotic resistance, phages are an appealing alternative to antibiotics in the fight against multidrug-resistant bacteria. Over the past few years, many phages have been isolated from various environments to treat bacterial pathogens. While isolating novel phages for treatment has had some success, this method is very fastidious because phage isolation, characterisation, and safety assessment require considerable time investment and financial resources. Well-established phage model systems have the potential to overcome these challenges. The knowledge acquired from decades of research on their structure, life cycle, and evolution ensures safe application and efficient handling. Currently, the only downside of established model systems is their limited effectiveness against pathogenic bacteria. However, breeding model phages to infect pathogens may be possible by applying new and old experimental evolution approaches.