The human digestive system is home to many microbes that are beneficial to our health; they help our systems battle harmful microbes and help us digest our food. When taking antibiotics to stop bacterial infections, we take the risk of killing the good bacteria and leaving behind the bacteria that are harmful. Currently in England and Wales there is an ongoing battle with a harmful bacterium, C. difficile. C. difficile, which causes infections found mostly in the hospital setting infections, are dropping; however, these microbes are becoming harder to kill because they are becoming more resistant to antibiotics. Current studies are being done to battle these bacteria. One study in particular is bacteriophage therapy.

Bacteriophages are virsus that naturally occur in our environment and attack bacteria. Bacteriophage therapy is not a new idea, but is being studied more because of bacteria becoming more resistant to antibiotics. Researchers at IFR, carried out by Dr. Meader and under the supervision of Dr. Narbad, are discovering a way to isolate bacteriophages that only target C. difficile bacteria and leave the good bacteria our body needs alone. To conduct their research, a model that mimicked the colon of an elderly person was created in a hospital setting. Antibiotics were given to the model the same way antibiotics are given to people in the hospital. The antibiotics disrupted the good bacteria and left the harmful bacteria. In this environment, C. difficile, flourish causing an infection. As the harmful bacteria increased, the researchers administered the bacteriophages that are designed to attack the bad bacteria. The study showed that the bacteriophages were able to reduce the amount of C. difficile bacteria and the toxin that these bacteria produce. However, it didn't kill all the bacteria. The phages inserted their DNA into the bacteria's chromosome, known as lysogeny, but this process makes the bacteria resistant against other attacks by other bacteriophages. In some cases the lysogeny process prevented the bacteria from producing their own toxins that are dangerous to humans. Even though some C. difficile bacteria survived, the bacteria were no longer a threat.