Page 38 - cosmos4

Bacteriophage or just phage is the single deadliest being on earth.
They exist everywhere even in our body and are harmless to
humans but deadly to
bacteria. These phages
consist of a head, a type of
long neck and leg like fibers.
Their head contains their genetic material. In the
past, a small cut on your hand or even bladder
infection could kill you. In those times, bacteria
were the most impossible beings to destroy. They
kept on killing more people until we found a
solution. Our scientists discovered antibiotics.
People soon started consuming them and bacteria
slowly went unnoticed. But, every being evolves
and the same happened to bacteria too. They
evolved and stopped responding to antibiotics.
They became Superbugs.

Another problem with antibiotics is that they kill all the good and bad bacteria. This is
where the bacteriophages come in. Bacteriophages are like programmed missiles
targeted to kill only the bad bacteria. So,

how does a bacteriophage kill bacteria?
The phages have a sort of a syringe at
the bottom of their body. They inject it
into the body of the bacteria and start

pumping their genetic material into the
bacteria. This material then forms new
phages inside the bacteria. Very soon,
the phages take complete control of the
bacteria and kill it. Now a question might arise in your mind. If bacteria evolved and
stopped responding to antibiotics couldn’t they evolve and stop responding to phages

too?