SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus (COVID-19)

"The challenge of growing cultures of antibiotic resistant microbes strikes me as not trivial." If you are set up with a laminar flow hood, petri dishes, nutrient agar, and what lab people call "good hands" it would not be hard. Challenges are later in genomics to see what they have that antibiotic sensitive microbes don't. Then on to metabolomics to see which differences can be exploited. It is multi disciplinary, and in each field requires people who know more than I do

"... using bacteriophage (phage) to treat an antibiotic resistant infection". Since the time when Earth only had bacteria and viruses, this war has been fought. Two billion years give or take. Surely the longest war ever. One can be enthusiastic about siding with viruses against bacteria, as they are effing good at it. However viruses have a much more recent field to exploit (us!), and many bacteria are helpful to us. So this will require really good hands in the lab and really good risk assessments.

"At least mRNA is relatively inert." I give that a no. mRNA is fragile everywhere. It is effective if it can enter cells because that's where the ribosomes are. Two very important aspects of mRNA:

Each can only do one 'thing'.
None can 'insert' into your (anybodys') genome. It don't work that way.

Two other very important aspects of mRNA:
Now vaccine companies have paved the way protecting mRNA with lipids (buttering them up).
mRNA 'coding' for any of many toxic proteins would be formidable weapons. Eeew.

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mRNA vaccines saved millions of lives from COVID. mRNA technology has awesome prospects, both positive and negative. In my rear view mirror I can still see really small people who are not yet in 21st century.