Why phage contamination is hard to kill, and how charged nanoparticles could help

Bacteriophages are viruses that can kill bacteria through highly specific interactions. While this property can be beneficial in selected applications, bacteriophages represent a serious threat to laboratories and industries that rely on bacterial cultures for production. Their selective inactivation remains a major challenge. Recently, researchers from the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences in Poland, demonstrated an innovative solution that enables targeting the surface of bacteriophage through electrostatic interactions as a promising strategy for their inactivation without adversely affecting bacterial strains or eukaryotic cells.