If new research by New Zealand scientists pays off, 'nature's ninjas' could help protect kiwifruit and bees from dangerous pathogens. The term 'nature's ninjas' has been coined by scientist Dr Heather Hendrickson, a senior lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury (UC), to describe phage bio-controls: viruses that attack specific bacteria in an organism. This capacity sets them apart from antibiotics, which often kill beneficial bacteria as well as harmful ones.
"Phages have a fairly limited host range," Dr Hendrickson says. "This means that if you gave a phage to a honeybee, it could infect the pathogen being targeted without being likely to infect other important micro-organisms in the same bee, such as the good gut bacteria keeping the bee healthy."
Source: stuff.co.nz