Author: Tammy Sisodiya Course: HTGAA 2026 Final Project
SECTION 1: ABSTRACT Antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections represent one of the most urgent threats to global public health, causing an estimated 1.27 million deaths annually and projected to claim up to 40 million lives by 2050 (CDC, 2025; Naddaf, 2024). Pseudomonas aeruginosa is classified as a Priority 1 critical pathogen by the WHO, owing to its capacity to form EPS-encased biofilms, coordinate virulence through quorum sensing, and acquire resistance to last-resort antibiotics including carbapenems and colistin. Bacteriophages offer a mechanistically orthogonal therapeutic modality that is not subject to the same resistance mechanisms as small-molecule antibiotics, but their narrow host range — determined by receptor-binding protein specificity — severely limits clinical deployment against non-native hosts.