A first human case series combined phage therapy with fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) to treat recurrent UTIs and reduce antibiotic use. Published in Nature Microbiology, the study administered both oral and intravesical phage therapy to three women with antibiotic-refractory rUTIs and included subsequent FMT for two patients. Investigators framed the strategy around decolonizing urinary and gut reservoirs, leveraging the idea that E. coli reservoirs can persist in the intestine even after acute UTI antibiotics. The report indicated the therapy was well tolerated, with long-term reduction in UTIs for the patients receiving combination therapy over two years. In the same cluster, a separate microbiome-related research brief supported the relevance of gut immune and inflammatory pathways to disease trajectories, reinforcing interest in interventions that modulate host-microbe interactions rather than targeting a single pathogen alone.