Each year, drug-resistant bacterial infections cause as many as 4.71 million deaths worldwide, while the development of new antibiotics struggles to keep pace. Facing this daunting challenge, an ancient virus derived from sewage — the bacteriophage — is being revitalized by a Shanghai research team, opening a highly efficient and precise “Chinese pathway” to tackle the superbug crisis. Today’s (7th) episode of the Shanghai New Productivity series reports: “Targeting Superbugs — Using Technology to Strengthen the Health Defense Line.”
Bacteriophages are the most abundant microorganisms on Earth. As viruses that specifically attack bacteria, they were explored for antibacterial therapy in multiple countries as early as the last century. However, their use was once stalled due to inefficient screening, slow matching, and the widespread adoption of antibiotics. Now, as “superbugs” render antibiotics increasingly powerless, global attention has returned to this “old technology.”
But where can we find these “life-saving phages”? The answer may surprise you — in sewage. Professor Zhu Tongyu, Director of the Fudan University Phage Research Institute and academic leader of kidney transplantation at Zhongshan Hospital, smiles as he explains: in their lab refrigerators, there’s no food — only samples collected from sewage treatment plants across the country. This is their “phage treasure trove.”
“Antibiotic development can’t keep up with the speed of bacterial mutation. So nature has gifted us with bacteriophages, the natural enemies of superbugs, which we can often isolate directly from sewage. There’s an interesting phenomenon: if you leave a pool of sewage for two or three weeks, it clears up; the impurities settle, and more importantly, the bacteria are consumed by bacteria-targeting microorganisms — the phages have eliminated them.”
Using a unique purification process, Zhu’s team turns what everyone else discards into treasure, capturing highly effective phages. Even better, phages attack only bacteria and are harmless to human cells. Side effects are far lower than antibiotics — among the 200+ patients treated by the team, the incidence of side effects was just 7%, mostly manageable fevers, without the allergic reactions commonly associated with antibiotics.
One beneficiary is 84-year-old Mr. Wu. His family recalls that after knee replacement surgery, he developed acute cholecystitis that triggered a drug-resistant bacterial infection. Once admitted to the ICU, his lung inflammation worsened rapidly, and antibiotics were no longer effective.
For patients with no treatment options, every minute counts. Dr. Wu Nannan, Associate Researcher at Fudan University Phage Research Institute, explains that based on a nationwide bacterial sample database, the team developed “virtual matching” technology. This overcomes the traditional limitation of requiring physical bacterial samples, significantly improving treatment efficiency. A process that previously took 72 hours — isolation, screening, and treatment — can now be compressed to just one hour, and can handle multiple drug-resistant infections from different patient sites.
“Now we can use epidemiological information, the time and location where the patient acquired the bacteria, and its characteristics and drug-sensitivity profile to predict its specific strain via our database. Our virtual matching system then provides the phage treatment directly. So when doctors submit a treatment request, we can deliver the phages within an hour.”
As “special forces” against bacteria, each phage typically targets only a specific bacterial strain. To scale from “personalized rescue” to “mass-producible weapons,” Zhu and his team are using synthetic biology to continuously engineer phages. They have already secured multiple patents in key areas, including formulation development and production processes. With ongoing research, the potential applications of phages continue to expand, promising entirely new therapeutic pathways for a variety of diseases.
“Phages do more than just lyse bacteria — they are also a research tool. They can serve as vaccine carriers, be delivered directly to the respiratory tract via sprays, or act as a tumor therapy delivery platform. Phages are a platform technology — not only for treating drug-resistant infections, but also as an important tool for future drug development.”
“After just two rounds of phage therapy, the lung infection was under control. Mr. Wu has now emerged from the danger period and has already started rehabilitation exercises.”
