Phage Directory

Researcher (Faculty and Technologists) in Molecular Biology of Phage-Bacteria-Animal Symbioses at One Health Microbiome Center, Penn State University in University Park, PA, USA The Bordenstein lab in the One Health Microbiome Center at The Pennsylvania State University seeks multiple Researchers. The Researcher position (non-tenure track faculty) will focus on the use of Drosophila transgenic expression, genetic editing techniques, fitness assays, reproductive tissue dissections, fluorescent and electron microscopy, microinjections, and team management to understand the genetics and mechanisms of how endosymbionts and their phage genes modify reproduction in animals.

Richard Henshaw (Tufts University) and colleagues published a new paper on chemotaxis of marine bacteria toward virus-infected cyanobacteria, showing that metabolites released during phage infection attract heterotrophic bacteria, likely influencing carbon cycling in marine ecosystems.

Northumbria University is hiring a PhD student, to study engineering phages to reprogram bacterial communities in preterm infant gut models. The project aims to control microbial populations and functions.

Zachary Baker (Virginia Tech) and colleagues published a new paper on engineered phages for gut protein delivery, showing that T4 phages can be modified to express therapeutic proteins released during bacterial lysis in the mammalian gut, reducing inflammation in colitis and obesity models.

What else can phages do, besides kill bacteria? Are bacteria even needed to make them anymore? In this month’s Phage Picks issue, we cover phage+AAV hybrids to deliver genes to eukaryotic cells, cell-free phage synthesis, and a bonus must-try taxonomy tool for your phage genomes!

We (Balgrist University Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland) seek a motivated MD-PhD candidate to join our team in May/June for translational research on urinary tract infections (UTIs). The role focuses on analyzing clinical and microbiological data from trials on novel UTI treatments, particularly phage therapy.

Andrea Kwa (Singapore General Hospital) and colleagues have announced Singapore’s second phage therapy case.

Antoine Culot (Rime Bioinformatics) and colleagues published a new paper on high-performance phage genome annotation, showing their automated rTOOLS pipeline provides functional annotations comparable to manual methods, enabling safer and faster phage therapy development.

Rebecca Tarnopol (University of California, Berkeley) and colleagues published a new paper on experimental horizontal gene transfer in Drosophila, showing that phage-derived genes confer innate immunity against parasitoid wasps when expressed in fruit fly immune tissues.

M. Fernanda Vieira (University of Minho) and colleagues published a new paper on machine learning for phage depolymerase identification, showing PhageDPO achieves 96% accuracy in predicting depolymerases with potential biotechnological applications.