Scientists Modify Viruses To Create New Weapon Against Bacterial Superbugs

"I'm not so much worried about dying from a heart attack or diabetes, because I'm active. I know what to do to work against it: watch what I eat, exercise," Evans says. "But what do I do about an infection? Or fighting off a bacteria — something inside me that I don't see until it's too late?"

"My fear is that as we are in this arms race, there gets to the point where we are not able to keep up with the enemy — the resistant bacteria. The superbugs take over, and we have nothing to defend against it," Priebe says.

So Priebe enlisted Evans to help develop a different way to fight superbugs. It's a new kind of antibiotic made out of viruses that have been genetically modified using the gene-editing tool CRISPR.

"What CRISPR is able to do is something that we've not been able to do before. And that is, very selectively modify genes in the viruses to target the bacteria," Priebe says.

Later this year, Dr. Michael Priebe and his colleagues plan to start infusing cocktails containing billions of bacteriophages genetically modified with CRISPR into patients at six centers around the United States.

Rob Stein/NPR

"If we're successful, this revolutionizes the treatment of infections," he adds. "This can be the game changer that takes us out of this arms race with the resistant bacteria and allows us to use a totally different mechanism to fight the pathogenic bacteria that are infecting us."

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