Targeting Phage Therapy 2026 Awards: Recognizing Clinical Excellence, Implementation and Innovation

The 9th World Conference on Targeting Phage Therapy 2026, held in Valencia on June 9–10, brought together leading clinicians, scientists, innovators and industry representatives working to advance bacteriophage therapy against antimicrobial-resistant infections.

This year’s awards recognized outstanding achievements across the phage therapy field, from real-world clinical experience and hospital implementation to precision technologies, phage engineering and next-generation therapeutic innovation.

	Phage Therapy Implementation Award Professor Frédéric Laurent, Hospices Civils de Lyon, France Professor Frédéric Laurent received the Phage Therapy Implementation Award for his leadership in building a practical model for therapeutic phage production and hospital-based access. His work on France’s first public platform for therapeutic phage production addresses one of the most urgent challenges in the field: how to produce, control, regulate and deliver phages safely and sustainably to hospitals and patients. This initiative represents an important step toward transforming phage therapy from exceptional compassionate use into a more structured clinical reality in France and Europe.
	Personalized Phage Therapy Clinical Excellence Award Dr. Evgenii Rubalskii, Hannover Medical School, Germany Dr. Evgenii Rubalskii received the Personalized Phage Therapy Clinical Excellence Award for his outstanding contribution to the clinical translation of personalized phage therapy. His work at Hannover Medical School represents one of the most advanced real-world clinical experiences in the field. Personalized bacteriophage therapy has been applied to patients facing complex, chronic, implant-associated, immunosuppression-related and difficult-to-treat infections. With more than 60 patients treated and clinical benefit reported in the majority of cases, this program shows that phage therapy can move beyond isolated compassionate-use cases and become part of structured interdisciplinary clinical care.
	Outstanding Innovation Award LXbio Pharmaceuticals / Henrique Ribeiro, Portugal The Outstanding Innovation Award was presented to LXbio Pharmaceuticals and Henrique Ribeiro for their innovative work on engineered bacteriophage platforms for targeted cancer therapy and next-generation precision biologics. Their approach illustrates how phage technologies can extend beyond classical antibacterial therapy. By engineering bacteriophages for HER2-positive breast cancer targeting, LXbio opens new perspectives for the use of phages as adaptable delivery and precision medicine platforms. This award recognizes scientific originality, industrial vision and the capacity to expand the future role of phage-based technologies.
	Precision Phage Therapy Award Dr. Biswajit Biswas, Naval Medical Research Command, USA Dr. Biswajit Biswas received the Precision Phage Therapy Award for his contribution to adaptive phage therapy and high-throughput screening strategies designed to overcome evolved bacterial resistance. One of the major challenges in phage therapy is the ability of bacteria to rapidly develop resistance to individual phages. Dr. Biswas’ work addresses this problem through adaptive targeting: identifying, replacing and combining effective phages to build targeted therapeutic cocktails. This strategy is highly relevant for multidrug-resistant infections, where speed, precision and adaptability are essential.
	Best Short Oral Presentation Award Emma L. Kane, Yale University, USA Emma L. Kane received the Best Short Oral Presentation Award for her presentation on phage-antibiotic synergy against multidrug-resistant infections. Her work highlights how bacteriophages can enhance antibiotic activity, reduce antibiotic MIC, improve bacterial killing and suppress resistant regrowth. This research supports one of the most clinically important directions in the field: using phages not only as alternatives to antibiotics, but also as partners capable of restoring or strengthening antibiotic efficacy.
	Best Phage Engineering Poster Award Dr. Constantinos Patinios, Life Sciences Center, Vilnius University, Lithuania Dr. Constantinos Patinios received the Best Phage Engineering Poster Award for his work on large-scale mutagenesis of the T7 receptor-binding protein to expand phage host range against otherwise resistant Escherichia coli hosts. His poster addressed one of the central limitations of phage therapy: bacterial resistance to phage infection. By engineering receptor-binding proteins and generating large mutant libraries, this work opens new possibilities for designing more robust phage therapeutics capable of overcoming resistance barriers.

A Field Moving Toward Clinical Reality

The 2026 awardees reflect the diversity and maturity of the phage therapy field.

Their achievements show that the future of phage therapy will not depend on one single breakthrough. It will require clinical experience, public and hospital infrastructure, regulatory vision, adaptive technologies, advanced engineering and bold innovation.

Targeting Phage Therapy 2026 congratulates all awardees and thanks them for their contribution to advancing bacteriophage therapy toward real-world solutions for patients and society.