A kidney transplant patient with a rare, multidrug-resistant (MDR) infection has become the first to be treated using an adjunctive bacteriophage therapy developed by Denmark's SNIPR Biome. The SNIPR001 therapy takes the form of a bacteriophage – a virus that only infects bacteria – that is modified using CRISPR gene-editing techniques to selectively target Escherichia coli, a major cause of MDR infections. Urine and tissue samples revealed no evidence of the infection, and there was no evidence of any harmful side effects of the bacteriophage therapy. It has now completed recruitment of patients for a phase 1b/2a trial of an oral formulation of SNIPR001 in people with blood cancer to see if it can prevent E coli infections in the blood, and is also developing the therapy for active E coli infections. "This case report marks an important clinical milestone for SNIPR001 and highlights the potential of our engineered CRISPR medicine platform to address difficult-to-treat, drug-resistant E coli infections," said the company's chief executive, Dr Christian Grøndahl.