AUTHOR=Pirnay Jean-Paul TITLE=Phage Therapy in the Year 2035 JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology VOLUME=11 YEAR=2020 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2020.01171 DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2020.01171 ISSN=1664-302X ABSTRACT=

The emergence of multidrug resistant bacteria in both community- and hospital-acquired infections is recognized as a major public health threat. Phage therapy is increasingly mediatized and researched as an additional tool for combatting antibiotic resistant infections. However, phages exhibit a number of properties that differ from antibiotics and hamper their development as pharmaceutical products and their application in therapy. This paper advocates a paradigm shift in the development and application of infectious disease therapeutics to cater for personalized phage therapy, which could be realized by the year 2035. More specifically, it presents a sustainable and ethical supply chain of instant synthetic phages, based on a community effort, supported and steered by public health organizations, and managed by a platform combining Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Distributed Ledger (DL) Technology.