Viruses are engineered to attack bacteria

Boston -- U.S. scientists are creating viruses to attack and destroy surface "biofilms" harboring bacteria in the body and on industrial and medical devices.

Such viruses would be one of the first potential applications of the emerging field of synthetic biology, which aims to design and build useful biomolecular systems.

The researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston University have already demonstrated one such virus. They say they believe many more viruses could be created to target different species or strains of bacteria.

"Our results show we can do simple things with synthetic biology that have potentially useful results," said MIT-Harvard doctoral student Timothy Lu, who led the research with Boston University Professor James Collins.

The work -- supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation -- is reported in the July 3 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International.