The New Morning: Report: Prevention with bacteriophages – How viruses benefit our health
October 29, 2026
Salmonella, Listeria and other pathogens can pose a serious threat to our health. This makes it all the more important that contaminated food can be recalled promptly and effectively. However, it is even better if such bacteria cannot contaminate our food in the first place.
A preventative approach relies, of all things, on viruses: bacteriophages – ‘bacteria-eaters’ – infect only very specific bacteria and inactivate them in a targeted manner, whilst beneficial microbes and the microbiome remain unaffected.
Microbiologist Lars Fieseler, a professor at the ZHAW and head of the Food Microbiology research group, is one of Switzerland’s leading phage researchers. In *Morgen:Rapport*, he explains how bacteriophages are structured and how they work, why their extreme specialisation is their greatest strength, at which stages of food production phages are most effective, and why phage resistance should be assessed differently from antibiotic resistance.
A conversation about what are arguably the world’s most useful viruses, about clean food as a means of prevention, and about what will improve once phages are able to realise their full potential for the benefit of our health. The interview is conducted by Jean-Daniel Strub, Head of the Neumünster Institute at the Zollikerberg Health Centre.
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