Antibiotics are no longer able to treat infections as effectively as they once did because many pathogens have developed resistance to these drugs. This phenomenon, known as antimicrobial resistance (AMR), claims over a million lives worldwide each year.

Scientists have long been searching for treatments to overcome AMR, and a discovery by researchers at the University of California takes a significant step forward. The team has developed a new type of silver nanoparticle (AgNP) that is much more effective against harmful bacteria and significantly slows the rise of antibiotic resistance.

The AgNP was designed with M13 phage—a rod-shaped virus that infects E. coli bacteria—as the biological template for particle growth, resulting in a potency 30 times higher than that of commercially purchased silver nanoparticles.