Tom Patterson should have died during those weeks in March 2016 when he lay comatose, a lethal strain of ­multi-drug-resistant bacteria raging through his body. Antibiotics proved useless, and his doctors were grim. They were losing him. He should have died, but he didn’t. Instead, in desperation, a novel approach … Continue reading →

In 1915, British scientist Frederick Twort saw something weird happening to the bacteria that had invaded his viral cultures: They were disappearing, a sign they had been destroyed. Two years later, French-Canadian microbiologist Félix d’ Hérelle observed the same phenomenon in his own lab. Both researchers, working independently, concluded that … Continue reading →