The National Institute of Health today announced funding support for research into new approaches for treating bacterial infections.

As antibiotic resistance becomes a growing concern, the awards to 18 academic institutions and three industrial organizations are intended to spur new ideas for treatments that may complement “or even replace currently available antibiotics that are losing effectiveness,” according to NIH.

Researchers are charged with using techniques such as bacteriophage (viruses that only attack bacterium) and decoy targets to combat the microbes that have become resistant to traditional antibiotic therapies.

“The discovery, development and deployment of antibiotics have transformed medicine; however, microbes continually evolve and become resistant to these lifesaving drugs,” said Anthony S. Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “New strategies are desperately needed to treat patients with antibiotic-resistant infections that often are deadly.”