Canada has a unique historical and now modern contribution to global phage therapy. Over 100 years ago Felix d’Herelle started his scientific career on attempting to distill whisky from maple syrup before exploring and naming the bacteriophage phenomenon. Contributions by authors including d’Herelle in the Canadian Medical Association Journal populate the 1930’s. d’Herelle’s continued to help launch phage therapy centres internationally. In the 1980’s a bacteriophage reference centre at the University of Laval was named in honour of d’Herelle and curated by Professor Ackermann initially. This centre provides phages to over 80 countries.

The modern Canadian roots for phage therapy include Dr Stephanie Strathdee a University of Toronto trained epidemiologist who would launched the modern era through advocating and coordinating the care of her husband. Many other Canadians have gone on to support Phage biology globally.

Nationally, phage therapy launched with Dr Strathdee’s talk at the Canadian National infectious diseases and microbiology conference in 2021. This directly led to creation of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease (AMMI) Canada pan-Canadian steering committee and phage therapy work group with Dr Greg German as the chair.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Phage Canada was created as a scientific meeting which would become a non-profit in 2023.

In 2022, the first modern case of phage therapy was done through the University of Calgary in collaboration with the Hatfull Lab at the University of Pittsburg

2023 is looking to be the year of the phage in Canada as far as phage therapy is concerned. A 5 million dollar (CAD) anonymous gift was provided to the University of Toronto with funds provided to the University of Laval reference centre to expand. In addition, the first registered clinical trial provided phage therapy to successfully treat a chronic urinary tract infection in Toronto with a novel minimally invasive approach.

Continuing the work on urinary tract infection is a registered systematic review of phage therapy with a global one health focus including all years, all languages, and all animals.

The industry in Canada for phage therapy is still in its infancy with some Good Manufacturing Practices production and collaborations internationally.

Finally, Global Clinical Phage Rounds was started in late 2022 supported by the Mayo Clinic, Phage Australia, European Society of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, and AMMI Canada. Dr. German is the chair of the network of 100 plus phage clinicians who discuss complex phage therapy cases across the world.

There are inherent regulatory and logistic hurdles for Phage Therapy in Canada but with international support from Houston to San Diego to Sydney to Bangladesh and points in between we have momentum for the future. Canada and Canadians abroad have a unique opportunity to help lead the treatment of antimicrobial resistance pandemic with Phage Therapy as a counter measure.