The Living Medicine: How a Lifesaving Cure Was Nearly Lost-and Why It Will Rescue Us When Antibiotics Fail

Longlist for the PEN/E. O Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

A remarkable story of the scientists behind a long-forgotten and life-saving cure: the healing viruses that can conquer antibiotic resistant bacterial infections

First discovered in 1917, bacteriophages—or “phages”—are living medicines: viruses that devour bacteria. Ubiquitous in the environment, they are found in water, soil, inside plants and animals, and in the human body.

When phages were first recognized as medicines, their p...