Bacteriophages reinvented: tiny killers, life savers and detectives
Microbiology Seminar Series
- Date: Apr 15, 2024
- Time: 01:15 PM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Prof. Dr. Martin J. Loessner
- ETH Zürich, Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health
- Location: MPI for Terrestrial Microbiology
- Room: Lecture Hall / Hybrid
- Host: Dr. Katharina Höfer
- Contact: katharina.hoefer@synmikro.mpi-marburg.mpg.de
Antibiotic resistance is a challenge for health care worldwide, and effective strategies to control drug-resistant bacteria are needed. While bacteriophages offer great host specificity and killing activity, their therapeutic potential is naturally limited by narrow host-ranges, insufficient antimicrobial activity, lysogeny, and rapid emergence of resistance. This can be overcome by design, engineering, assembly, and rebooting of synthetic phage genomes. We developed a bacterial L-form surrogate host platform, and use recombination-based engineering of large phage genomes supported by CRISPR-Cas based counterselection. Besides bacteriophages, another very successful approach is to harness the bacteriolytic enzymes encoded by phages, such as endolysins and depolymerases.