At Targeting Phage Therapy 2026, Martin J. Loessner from ETH Zurich will present recent advances in engineering next-generation bacteriophages for therapeutic and diagnostic applications.

Bacteriophages offer remarkable host specificity, making them promising tools for precision antimicrobial strategies. Yet their clinical potential is often limited by narrow host ranges, temperate life cycles, and the rapid emergence of bacterial resistance.

Professor Loessner’s research explores how synthetic biology and genetic engineering can overcome these limitations. His team has developed innovative methods for in-vitro DNA assembly and reactivation of synthetic phage genomes, enabling the design of engineered phages with enhanced antibacterial properties.

This work includes several major advances:

• Conversion of temperate phages into virulent therapeutic agents

• Integration of payload genes to increase bacterial killing activity

• Development of nano-luciferase reporter phages that can function as rapid diagnostic tools to guide treatment decisions

• Structure-guided redesign of receptor-binding proteins to expand phage host range against pathogens such as E. coli, Klebsiella, Staphylococcus, Enterococcus, and Listeria

• Creation of Nanophages, engineered phages incorporating nanobody-based receptor binding proteins to improve bacterial targeting and mitigate resistance

Together, these advances demonstrate how bacteriophages can evolve from naturally occurring viruses into programmable antimicrobial and diagnostic platforms.

Strategic question addressed

Can engineered bacteriophages become reliable and scalable therapeutic platforms capable of overcoming host-range limitations and bacterial resistance in clinical infections?