PhageCast News and interviews on the phage field.

Today we are interviewing Graham Hatfull: Graham Hatfull is Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. He is well-known in the phage field for his work in mycobacteriophages.
Why are mycobacteriophages important? Why do we need those phages? You will learn about phage therapy efforts against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) and M. abscessus, how endolysins work against these pathogens… and much more.
Graham also told us about the Science Education Alliance Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) program, which covers almost 150 participating institutions and over 5,000 student researchers each year: curious about what it takes to start it?
In the last part of the episode, you can hear some advice from him for people entering on the phage field.
Enjoy the episode!

In this episode of phage bites, we talk to Enea Maffei, a recent-graduate, Postdoctoral researcher at D-HEST in ETH Zurich.



He explains how he isolated phage Paride against dormant cells of P. aeruginosa and he explains us a bit more about the story, combination with antibiotics, how he isolated the phage, how the phage performed in animal models and much more... tune in to hear the details!


In the second part of the conversation, we also talk about his experience as a PhD student and the struggles he faced and overcame before starting his new position as a Postdoctoral researcher.



Find the article below for more details:
Phage Paride can kill dormant, antibiotic-tolerant cells of Pseudomonas aeruginosa by direct lytic replication

In our conversation with Paul Turner we covered his research on phage evolution and how he has applied his findings to treating Cystic fibrosis patients against MDR Pseudomonas aeruginosa with phage therapy.

Phages have the power to select on certain bacterial treats, thus, the understanding of how bacteria develop resistance to phage can make us be better prepared to respond to this resistance. Paul Turner´s lab is applying this knowledge, predicting the trade-offs of bacterial resistance to phage, to achieve bacterial killing reversing the antibiotic resistance.

He talked about ongoing work in this matter, how these findings are translated from in vitro to in vivo, and he also gave really inspiring and insightful advice for the people in the field.

More on Paul Turner:

https://turnerlab.yale.edu/publications/personalized-inhaled-bacteriophage-therapy-decreases-multidrug-resistant-pseudomonas

Dr. Paul Turner is the Rachel Carson Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, and Microbiology faculty member at Yale School of Medicine. his research focuses on the evolutionary genetics of viruses, particularly RNA viruses, and phages that infect bacterial pathogens & the use of phages to treat antibiotic-resistant bacterial diseases.

He is also quite active in science-communication and outreach to the general public, and he has a TED talk that you can find online on the use of phages to treat antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Lorenzo Corsini was the co-founder of PhagoMed Biopharma, a company focused on developing targeted antimicrobials to treat chronic infections. He led PhagoMed as CEO until it was acquired by BioNTech in 2021 and renamed into BioNTech
R&D (Austria), which Lorenzo now leads as Managing Director. Prior to starting PhagoMed in 2017, he was a Principal at the Boston Consulting Group. He did his PhD in molecular biology at EMBL Heidelberg and has diploma degrees in biochemistry and business administration.
On the episode, we cover the phage programs led by
Lorenzo and give special focus to the recent publication of the work that led to the discontinuation of phage research in PhagoMed Biopharma at the time, highlighting the fact that the activity of S.aureus phages is severely diminished in the presence of plasma or synovial fluid. ⁠https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-45405-8⁠
We also get to hear Lorenzo´s own story in entrepreneurship and we hear recommendations from Lorenzo into transition of students to industry and entrepreneurship.
Enjoy!
 

You can hear the first of two parts of our interview with Jean-Paul Pirnay:Senior Scientist and currently Head of the Laboratory for Molecular and Cellular Technology (LabMCT) in Queen Astrid Military Hospital, Jean-Paul Pirnay is very well known in our field for his work in Belgium regarding the use of phages against bacterial infections.We covered in this conversation their first 100 documented cases of phage therapy in Belgium.

In the first part you heard how phage therapy is done in Belgium, how it started and his view on phage therapy today, and how it will be done in the future.You also got a first glance into the data of their 100 first cases and their treatment efficacy rates, adverse reactions, the main infections they are treating, the limitations and bottlenecks of the study and the process, etc. (link here in the end of the description)------------------------------------------The second part of the conversation covers all other details like how to deal with phage resistance, how phages are selected for use in patients, the use of phages in combination with antibiotics, how they do their phage adaptations… and you will get to hear some of Jean-Paul´s advice to PhD students and early career researchers!-------------------------------------------Stay till the end and we hope you enjoy the episode as much as we did!https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.08.28.23294728v1Retrospective, observational analysis of the first one hundred consecutive cases of personalized bacteriophage therapy of difficult-to-treat infections facilitated by a Belgian consortium

You can hear the first of two parts of our interview with Jean-Paul Pirnay:

Senior Scientist and currently Head of the Laboratory for Molecular and Cellular Technology (LabMCT) in Queen Astrid Military Hospital, Jean-Paul Pirnay is very well known in our field for his work in Belgium regarding the use of phages against bacterial infections.

We covered in this conversation their first 100 documented cases of phage therapy in Belgium, in the first part you will hear how phage therapy is done in Belgium, how it started and his view on phage therapy today, and how it will be done in the future.

You also get a first glance into the data of their 100 first cases and their treatment efficacy rates, adverse reactions, the main infections they are treating, the limitations and bottlenecks of the study and the process, etc. (link here in the end of the description)
------------------------------------------
The second part of the conversation will cover all other details like how to deal with phage resistance, how phages are selected for use in patients, the use of phages in combination with antibiotics, how they do their phage adaptations… and you will get to hear some of Jean-Paul´s advice to PhD students and early career researchers!
-------------------------------------------
Stay till the end and we hope you enjoy the episode as much as we did!
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.08.28.23294728v1
Retrospective, observational analysis of the first one hundred consecutive cases of personalized bacteriophage therapy of difficult-to-treat infections facilitated by a Belgian consortium