The solution to superbugs might be hiding in your toilet

Southampton researchers are enlisting the public to become citizen scientists in the fight against antibiotic resistance.

They will have a presence at the prestigious Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in London. It opens to the public on Wednesday.

Visitors to the ‘Fighting superbugs’ exhibit will be invited to help find phages. These are tiny viruses that could be key to combating antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Members of the public will be asked to collect and send water samples from their homes, local parks and rivers, or even their toilets. They will be analysed at the University of Southampton.

The lead researcher on the project is Dr Franklin Nobrega. He is part of the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre’s Microbiology, Immunology and Infection theme.

Pressing public health issue

The World Health Organization identifies AMR as one of the top global public health threats. They estimate that it was directly responsible for more than one million global deaths in 2021. They also suggest that it contributed to over four million more.

When bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, infections become harder to treat. This leads to longer illnesses and higher healthcare costs. There is also a greater risk of death from infections that would normally be manageable.

AMR threatens the safety of a wide range of medical procedures. These range from chemotherapy and organ transplants to something as routine as a tooth extraction. Even minor infections resulting from these interventions could become life-threatening without effective antibiotics.

‘Promising alternative’

Phages present a promising alternative. Unlike antibiotics, they are highly specific. They target harmful bacteria without affecting healthy microbes.

Phages also multiply at the site of infection. They provide continuous, focused treatment until the bacteria are eradicated.

This “self-amplifying” ability could make phage therapy a sustainable and efficient solution for tackling resistant infections.

In the UK, phages can now be used under existing regulatory routes for unlicensed treatments in individual patients. New guidance from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) aims to accelerate the safe development of licensed phage-based medicines for wider clinical use.

Phage therapy has already been used in the UK and globally to treat patients with life-threatening antibiotic-resistant infections when antibiotics alone have failed. These include bone infections, sepsis, and cystic fibrosis-related infections.

Dr Franklin Nobrega said: “The threat of antimicrobial resistance grows year on year. We urgently need to find alternative treatments to reduce our reliance on antibiotics. Phages have enormous potential. They are everywhere and can provide incredibly precise, targeted treatments for resistant infections.

“We know that phage therapy can be effective in treating resistant infections. However, there are billions of different phages, each targeting a specific microbe.

“By finding more of these phages, we can improve our chances of beating AMR. In this arms race against resistant bacteria, every new phage we discover adds a valuable weapon to our arsenal.”

Collecting hundreds of samples

Over 500 visitors to the Summer Science Exhibition will be provided with free sampling kits.

Participants will name their phage before sending it to Southampton in the post. This is in the hope that scientists can isolate a phage from their sample. They will also be asked to upload coordinates of where their sample was taken to phage-collection.org.

Then, the researchers next step will be to analyse the 500+ citizen scientist samples. They will check if any of them contain therapeutically relevant phages.

Participants will be able to track the progress of their own sample on the website. This will be updated with the overall findings of the project.

Attendees at the Summer Science Exhibition will be able to take part in a VR experience that explains how to apply phage therapy therapeutically. Another activity will see them get the chance to build their own Lego model of a phage.

Southampton researchers will use the event to gauge public opinion on phage therapy as an alternative to antibiotics. This will help them design new therapies.