Phage Therapies: Lessons (Not) Learned from the "Antibiotic Era"

The use of phages as therapeutic or prophylactic approaches is gaining increased interest amid the growing menace of antibiotic resistance. Phages, along with other new anti-infective strategies, are certainly welcome as much needed additions to the medicinal arsenal. However, we can easily make with phages the same mistakes we made with antibiotics, which caused the current resistance crisis. The oversimplification of the ecological role of antibiotics, neglecting ancient resistance and the role of horizontal gene transfer; the active search for wide spectrum, and the massive agricultural abuse; and, most importantly, the financial greed behind the development and use of antibiotics; these are all trends that are now visible in phage research. Should we bring phages to the same track that wasted antibiotics, we could be looking at a "postphage era" in our near future.