Role of Phages in Past Molecular Biology and Potentially in Future Biomedicine

Viruses that infect bacteria (bacteriophages or phages) have a history of use in both biomedicine and basic molecular biology. Here, I briefly outline the pre-1940 use of phages in biomedicine and then more comprehensively outline the subsequent use of phages in determining the basics of molecular biology. Finally, I outline work that appears to form the foundation for a future, phage-enhanced biomedicine that generally extends medicine in the areas of anti-bacterial therapy (including vaccinology), anti-tumor therapy, and understanding the basic process of amyloid-associated neurodegenerative diseases. The following are general conclusions. (1) In the future, the discipline of phage-based biomedicine will be enhanced by more extensive merging with the discipline of basic phage biology (including molecular biology) and evolution. These two disciplines have been separated post-1940. (2) Biomedicine, in general, will be assisted if the focus is on key problems and key observations, thereby leaving details to later work. (3) Simplicity of strategy is a virtue that can be implemented and should be pursued with phages. (4) Capacity for directed evolution provides phages with generative (artificial intelligence-like) means for increasing biomedical effectiveness without using human design. Two related quotes set the stage (references at the end of the text). “But see that the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man” (physicist Richard Feynman). “Nature, in all its variations and seeming paradoxes, speaks to those who pay attention and gives hints and clues to basic facts” (a thought attributed to Felix d’Herelle, a self-trained biologist who developed biological phage isolation and characterization). The integration of natural phenomenon-focused basic science and medical practice is an underlying theme.