We are on a mission to save lives with phage therapy
Phage Australia is a network of phage researchers and clinician scientists aiming to professionalise phage therapy as the third major intervention for infectious diseases, after vaccines and antibiotics.
We’re building a national ecosystem that integrates phage biobanking, rapid phage diagnostics, phage manufacturing, and an adaptive clinical trial framework that fits the context of personalised phage therapy.
Our team’s combined expertise spans infectious disease, phage biology, biobanking, genomics and data science, and we represent major medical and academic centres from across Australia.
We’ve safely administered phages to 50+ patients, across multiple clinical indications and pathogens
Working closely with the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), our team has safely treated 28 adults and 4 children with phage therapy in conjunction with antibiotics.
We’ve successfully treated sepsis, bone infections, and cystic fibrosis-associated lung infections with phages, targeting pathogens including Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Mycobacterium abscessus.
In 2017-2018, we used an intravenous phage cocktail approach to successfully treat 13 patients with Staphylococcus aureus-associated sepsis (Nature Microbiology, 2020; Clinical Trial NCT03395769)
In 2019, we used a personalised phage therapy approach to successfully treat a 7-year-old child with Pseudomonas aeruginosa-associated osteoarticular infection (EMBO Molecular Medicine, 2021; ABC 7.30 report; EMBO Podcast)
Since then, we’ve used a personalised, engineered phage therapy approach to treat two children with Mycobacterium abscessus disease, with another one being treated now.