Capsid & Tail
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- Q&A: Favorite phage production equipment This week we're trying something new — let's call it Phage Community Q&A! You send us your questions, we send you off-the-cuff answers. This week, Jess shares her favorite phage-making equipment in response to a researcher who's setting up…
- How to get successful outcomes with phage therapy "When I first treated, we had no idea how much to give, how often to give... we weren't aware of what the concentration of phage should be." IPATH's Dr. Saima Aslam shares how eight years of treating patients has taught her team to achieve…
- Our Phage Picks for Aug 2025 It’s Phage Picks time! This week, we highlight some new mind-expanding papers — one showing how phage killing might train the immune system like vaccines, one unpacking how temperate phages rewrite bacterial flagella with RNA-guided tools,…
- C&T Round Up for July 2025! This month, we explored how Canada's first successful prosthetic joint infection phage therapy case is leading up to a full clinical trial; plus Jessica wrote a guide/manifesto(?) about why you should sequence (and re-sequence) your phages.
- You should sequence your phages When's the last time you sequenced the phages in your lab? Have you ever, or are you relying on what someone said they were? You might be like 12/13 phage labs and have secret mixtures masquerading as pure phages. You should sequence your…
- Inside Canada's first prosthetic joint phage treatment "It still doesn't happen overnight — the paperwork itself, I aged like 20 years." Dr. Marisa Azad shares the real timeline and logistics behind Canada's first bone infection phage therapy case, plus why her N-of-1 approach creates a…
- C&T Round Up for June 2025! This month, Jess went viral with a post about How to Read Papers, we picked some great bread and butter papers, and Jess got to chat with Cytophage about navigating the Canadian regulatory phage maze.
- How to read papers This week we're diving into something we're pretty sure every researcher grapples with: how to read papers without your brain melting! Jess posted about this on LinkedIn and it blew up — tons of researchers shared their own…
- Our Phage Picks for June 2025 It's Phage Picks time! This week Jess picks another 'bread-and-butter' phage lab paper about how to keep your phages stable (genetically and physically) over the decades, and Jan surfaces a killer overview of all the ways phage + AI is…
- How to navigate regulatory limbo: a Canadian phage therapy CEO's playbook "There's 145 components of the regulatory requirements that I don't fit in. So how do I get past that? And governments right now say, I don't know."
- C&T Round Up for May 2025! For this month, we feature a guest post about pipolin use in PCR, two podcasts from Jess, and another lab hacks episode from Jan.
- Why aren't we using primerless PCR for microbial discovery? What are pipolins, and how can they help us discover more microbes? Aaryan Harshith's newest post dives into primer-independent polymerases, and how they can help us break through biases of our current microbe-mapping methods.
- Finding papers at scale Among the millions of papers published each year, how can you make sure you never touch another irrelevant paper?
- Why can't more patients access phage therapy? "This feels just like the early days of the HIV crisis. People are dying, you're not hearing about it. We need a group like ACT UP to bring this to the public. We're not going to get phage therapy until people start demanding we have it."
- Finally, phase 2 phage therapy data! Inside BiomX's successful trial with CEO Jonathan Solomon "We put a dent in the theory that phage therapy doesn't work. Maybe it does work. Maybe it's worth taking a risk." This week we talk to Jonathan Solomon, CEO of BiomX, about their successful phase 2 clinical trial for diabetic foot…
- C&T Round Up for April 2025! Another round up! This month, we feature a new Lab Hacks format from Jess, one of our most controversial Capsid posts on AI use in science, and a Phage Picks of some of Jessica's nearest and dearest protocols (she uses these all the time —…
- Our Phage Picks for April 2025 It's Phage Picks time! This week's theme is bread and butter — two picks from Jess about methods papers that should be staples of any phage lab: her favourite phage-making paper, and an (aspirational) phage quantification paper she really…
- Does every scientist need an AI co-scientist? "It was right in front of us the whole time." Imperial College London professors José Penadés & Tiago Costa challenged Google's new 'AI co-scientist' with a phage PICI question they'd just solved after years of work. Given their unpublished…
- Tips from the lab: Rapid lab hacks New format alert! Here's 5 rapidfire, off-the-cuff tips from the lab — from how to tweak plaque size to purifying filamentous phages to preventing phage cross-contamination. These first 5 are written by Jessica but we hope to crowdsource…
- C&T Round Up for March 2025! Roundup time! This month, we heard from Aaryan's experience as an undergrad researcher at Paul Bollyky's lab. We picked papers across topics like T4-AAV viral vectors, cell-free synthesis of phages, and taxMyPhage, a new tool for…
- A tale of three viruses (and how I discovered them) What does discovering a phage really feel like? Stanford undergrad Aaryan Harshith takes us on an adventure through history and now—perfect for a Sunday morning with coffee!
- Our Phage Picks for March 2025 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…
- If antibiotics companies fail, why won't phage companies? "As soon as investors hear 'infectious disease,' their eyes get big. When they hear 'antibacterial,' alarm bells start ringing.” And yet, Amanda Burkardt and Mayukh Das are building Phiogen Pharmaceuticals anyway. Why?
- C&T Round Up for February 2025! Issue #300! This month we announced the return of Evergreen, covered Intralytix's 25-year-long overnight success, and Silvia's journey to build up a new phage lab.
- Building a phage lab: a journey of resilience, teamwork, and sticky situations A decade of water damage left the floors warped — and that was just the beginning. This week, Dr. Silvia Würstle shares her new lab's journey transforming an abandoned space into a cutting-edge phage lab.
- Evergreen Phage Meeting hits the road for 2025 The Evergreen Phage Meeting is a special conference — many of us can trace our phage journeys back to Evergreen. And when we wrapped up last year, we weren't even sure if we'd ever do it again. But when there's a will, there's a way.
- First food, then pharma: How Intralytix played the long game with phages "Phages? We don't use those here." This week, learn how these words propelled Sandro Sulakvelidze, fresh from phage-friendly Tbilisi, into a 25+ year journey to build a phage company with FDA-approved products.
- The Year of the Phage Machine Happy 2025 everyone! It's still January so we can still say happy new year! We are finally back after a nice long extended Christmas break + insanity January. Tons of phage news has accumulated — here you go!
- Year in Review 2024 This year we moved from Sydney to San Francisco — what a year. Here's some reflections, things that went well, things that didn't, and some things we learned. Happy holidays to everyone!
- Our Phage Picks for December 2024! Phage + machine learning = amazing strides, yet again! From creating synthetic genomes to building smarter experiments, this month’s Phage Picks issue explores some key papers Jess & Jan keep coming back to!
- Mapping global Acinetobacter strains to speed up phage therapy A team of Hungarian scientists created a global ‘superbug map’ for Acinetobacter baumannii strains, paving the way for scalable phage therapy to combat antibiotic-resistant infections in hospitals.
- C&T Round Up for November 2024! Roundup time! This month we explored phage therapy at Mayo Clinic with Dr. Gina Suh, Yamini Patel shared her experience at the VoM 2024 Conference in Australia, and Esme Brinsden discussed a new citizen science initiative in South England.…
- Citizen Science fuels South England’s phage therapy This week, Esme Brinsden, a recent bio grad from the University of Southampton, shares her experience working on the Phage Collection Project, an early career-led citizen science initiative aimed at advancing phage therapy research.
- A week in Australia for Viruses of Microbes 2024: Yamini’s Experience This week, NYIT undergrad student Yamini Patel shares insights from Viruses of Microbes 2024 in Australia. She highlights what she learned, from phage therapy with Rob Lavigne, to Colin Hill's insights on crAssphage, to what's new in…
- A Mayo Clinic Physician's Journey with Phage Therapy What's it like treating patients with phages at a major US medical center? In a new Podovirus Podcast episode, Mayo Clinic's Dr. Gina Suh shares insights from 5 years of phage therapy — the successes, the challenges, and what it takes to…
- C&T Round Up for October 2024! Roundup time! This month we explored phage-based gene editing in the microbiome, high schooler Kate Kelly shared her jam-packed 30 days in Stanford’s Bollyky lab, and Ritah Nakayinga from Kyambogo University discussed her phage cocktail to…
- Protecting Uganda's banana crops with phages Can phages save Uganda’s banana crops? This week, Ritah Nakayinga, a lecturer and phage researcher at Kyambogo University, shares her work developing a phage cocktail to fight Banana Bacterial Wilt in Uganda's staple crop.
- Our Phage Picks for October 2024! It's Phage Picks time! This week we've got the seventh rendition of our new format, where we share the papers we keep bookmarked, and keep coming back to.
- Fluorescence, FRAP and flow: 30 days in a phage lab This week, California high school student Kate Kelly shares what she learned spending 30 days in the Bollyky group's phage microbiology and immunology lab at Stanford this summer. (Somehow she seems to have tried more techniques in a month…
- How Eligo Bioscience edits gut bacteria with phages How can we harness phage-based technologies to edit bacterial genes in the microbiome? Jesus Fernandez of Eligo Biosciences shares how they're modifying phages to base-edit mouse gut bacteria, and how that opens up new possibilities for…
- C&T Round Up for September 2024! This month we heard about how Sartorius' columns can bring down endotoxins close to zero. There's also a new phage data resource called Phage Base! Lastly, we also picked a couple of super interesting papers this month — one about how…
- Using monolith chromatography to purify phages How do we remove impurities from our phage preparations, and get our endotoxins down close to zero? This week we've got Ažbe Žnidaršič and Lucija Rebula from Sartorius BIA Separations here to tell us about how CIMmultus monolith…
- Our Phage Picks for September 2024! It's Phage Picks time! This week we've got the sixth rendition of our new format, where we share the papers we keep bookmarked, and keep coming back to.
- PhageBase: A visual atlas of phages This week Aaryan Harshith, sophomore student at Stanford (and one of Jess' new labmates!) shares how and why he built a hand-curated database of phage TEM images. Check it out and add yours!
- C&T Round Up for August 2024! This month, we recap what we learned about AI spreadsheet tools, how phage funding has changed over the years, and the rise of phage research in Latin America!
- Building Latin America's phage network: a journey to Phage Option 2024 'Phage Option 2024' in Cartagena, Colombia is happening this December! This week we learn the story of its organizers, a group of mostly female Latin American scientists, and how they've advanced phage science by forming networks and…
- Getting phage research funded: Joe Campbell reflects on a career at NIAID How do we get our phage grants funded? We start by getting to know our program officers! Joe Campbell has played a key role in shaping phage research funding for the last decade during his time at NIAID, and this week shares how he sees the…
- Can AI extract data from a messy spreadsheet? What if we could instantly extract information we need from a spreadsheet (like raw plate reader data) in just a click? Can AI help? This week, Jan writes about a project he worked on for Sphinx Bio, where he tried to extract data from…
- C&T Round Up for July 2024! This month, we recap what we learned about phage genome analysis tools, phage production pipelines, n of 1 clinical trials, and more!
- N of 1 trials vs. compassionate use for phage therapy What are 'n of 1' clinical trials, how do they compare to compassionate use, and how might they be used for phages? This week Jessica shares musings about this topic, which has been swirling in her brain for a while now...
- Our Phage Picks for July 2024! It's Phage Picks time! This week we've got the fifth rendition of our new format, where we share the papers we keep bookmarked, and keep coming back to.
- Building on the shoulders of phage giants This week, we feature Bishoy Maher Zaki, a PhD researcher who transitioned from phage isolation to phage bioinformatics. He’s currently streamlining phage genome analysis tools for the research community — and is asking for help from the…
- C&T Round Up for June 2024! For this month, we found some super interesting phage papers, heard about phage-vectored vaccine production, and more!
- Building a SEED library for One Health This week, Jonathan Moore tells us how (and why) he founded nonprofit GSD Bio to build a lactococcal phage-based vaccine production system as a public good.
- Our Phage Picks for June 2024! It's Phage Picks time! This week we've got the fourth rendition of our new format (and Jan's favourite..!) where we share the papers we keep bookmarked, and keep coming back to.
(Yes, Jan now reads more phage papers than Jessica, and she's…
- Insights from the 6th Bacteriophage Therapy Summit 2024 This week we're featuring Michael Shamash's reflections on a couple of noteworthy topics covered at this year's Hanson Wade phage summit. Michael is a McGill University PhD student by day / awesome Phage Directory volunteer by night —…
- C&T Round Up for May 2024! Round up time! This month we covered why phage researchers are flocking to Australia in July (and California in June!), discussed our 'phage picks' for this month, and shared a very special story from one of the researchers that make up the…
- Phage therapy is unfettered by borders This week, we hear from Gabor Apjok, who has responded to many of our Phage Alerts. Working out of his lab in Hungary, he has successfully isolated and supplied phages that have gone on to treat several patients around the world.
- You're invited to the 2024 International Soil Virus Conference! What are viruses doing in soil? This week we hear from Dr. Gary Trubl about an upcoming conference he's co-organizing in Livermore, California dedicated to soil virus biology!
- Our Phage Picks for May 2024! Here's the third rendition of our new format: Phage Picks — where we share the papers we keep bookmarked... and keep coming back to.
- Why all phage researchers need to be in Australia this July This week we've got an interview with Jeremy Barr on what to expect this year at the Viruses of Microbes conference in Cairns, Australia! From Great Barrier Reef, to crocodile jet ski stories, to special ways they're making the conference…
- C&T Round Up for April 2024! Round up time! This month we covered phages and neutrophils, reflected on Phage Directory and Phage Australia, and did our second 'Phage Picks' issue.
- Setting up systems to make phages available for all Six years ago, just as I was finishing up my microbiology PhD, I stumbled across an opportunity to help a patient. One patient turned into many, and what I used to think was 50 years away — using phages to treat infections — has become my…
- What do we know about phages and neutrophils? There's been a few studies lately on phages and neutrophils. Do they help each other? Do they get in each other's way? Who can keep track? This week we take a look at three phage-neutrophil papers and what they found.
- Our Phage Picks for April 2024! Here's the second rendition of our new format: Phage Picks — where we share the papers we keep bookmarked... and keep coming back to.
- C&T Round Up for March 2024! Round up time! This month we did our first 'Phage Picks' issue, dove into how prophages impact fly sperm, shared insights and recordings from Urmi's webinar series with top phage therapy clinicians, and Elisabet More from PDB Biotech taught…
- An introduction to phage-based diagnostics This week, Dr. Elisabet More, Principal Scientist at PDB Biotech, shares how phages can be used as diagnostics, and how they use phages to detect M. tuberculosis hidden by the immune system.
- Advancing Phage Therapy: Insights from Leading Clinicians This week, Prof. Urmi Bajpai shares insights (and recordings!) from a phage therapy clinician webinar series she hosted recently, which featured Gina Suh, Chip Schooley, Jon Iredell, Gopal Nath, and Mzia Kutadeladze.
- How a prophage controls fly reproduction This week we're highlighting a brand new paper out of the Bordenstein lab, out yesterday in Science, that unravels the mechanism by which prophage-encoded proteins control whether Drosophila flies reproduce or not.
- Our Phage Picks for March 2024! We're starting off the year by trying a new format: Phage Picks — where we share the papers we keep bookmarked... and keep coming back to.
- We're back! Hello 2024! We’re excited to embark on another new chapter this year, this time in the San Francisco Bay Area! Here’s some reflections on the transition now that we’re stateside, what we’re thinking about these days, and a sneak peek into what’s in…
- Year in Review 2023 This week we wrap up 2023 and reflect on our biggest surprises and proudest moments! Things are also changing in 2024...
- S. aureus phage therapy: we need further research This week, we learn from David and Lorenzo from BioNTech (formerly PhagoMed) about their experience with phage inhibition of S. aureus phages by plasma and synovial fluid.
- Experimenting with REDCap This week, we introduce a new mini-series about building experiments on REDCap, a tool used for collecting clinical patient data. In the first issue, we dive deep into building instruments with nested permutations.
- Lessons from viral vectors, CAR-T, & RNA Phage production has its quirks, but it’s not the only field trying to reliably manufacture a new biological entity. This week Jessica shares learnings from Australia’s annual bioprocessing conference about challenges other fields are…
- C&T Round Up for November 2023! Round up time! This month Jan released Open Phage Data Sheet (google sheet full of phage tools/links/resources, open to all to contribute!) and shared a walkthrough on using ChatGPT for data work. And Libby Duignan wrote about her recent…
- AI-Assisted Data Engineering This week, we share some examples and learnings from experimenting with data processing and extraction using OpenAI’s slew of new ChatGPT tools!
- Introducing the Open Phage Data Sheet This week we’re launching Open Phage, a public, editable spreadsheet of phage resources like grants, clinical trials, and bioinformatics/lab tools!
- Research visit to Phage Australia at the Westmead institute for Medical Research This week, Libby Duignan tells us about her visit from the UK to Phage Australia, and how she'll be applying what she learned about phage manufacturing in her new role devising phage manufacturing systems in the UK.
- C&T Round Up for October 2023! This month, we heard about the Southeast Asia phage workshop, a few tidbits from Evergreen, and a brief intro on using ChatGPT for lab work!
- ChatGPT tips for lab work This week, we get to explore and share some ideas about how to (responsibly) use ChatGPT for lab work!
- Evergreen 2023: Looking Back This week, we finally get to post the recap of Evergreen Phage Meeting! With a flurry of guest posts, we didn't even get to write about Evergreen until a couple of months after the event — but here's what went down, a picture gallery, and…
- Southeast Asia Hands-on Phage Workshop, by Phages for Global Health This week, we have a special guest post by Donna May Papa, who writes about the Southeast Asia Hands-on Phage Workshop run by Tobi Nagel over at Phages for Global Health!
- C&T Round Up for September 2023! This month we heard about the ICBRAR phage conference in India, got an excerpt from The Good Virus by Tom Ireland, had a look behind the scenes of a Swiss team battling UTIs with engineered phages, and learned about speeding up the phage…
- Making our phage therapy process more efficient This week Jessica Sacher shares ways the Phage Australia lab team has been improving efficiency of its phage therapy system, such as dividing up work, managing expectations, overcommunicating with clinical teams, and setting up solid lab…
- Urine Good Hands: Battling UTIs with Engineered Phages This week, we have an amazing guest article from Matthew Dunne and the Loessner Lab at ETH Zurich about their phage-based diagnostic tool and engineered phage work.
- The Good Virus: A book about phages by Tom Ireland This week we're featuring an excerpt from a new book about phages, called The Good Virus.
- Unlocking the Power of Bacteriophages: Join Us at ICBRAR-2023 This week, Atif Khan, a core contributor for Capsid & Tail, tells us a bit about the history of phage work in India, and invites us to join him at the ICBRAR 2023, an upcoming phage conference in Chennai. Both Jess and I will be speaking…
- Evergreen 2023 Schedule & Lineup! Hi everyone! Evergreen is in TWO DAYS! We’re doing a lot of work preparing for the 25th Evergreen Phage Meeting, and it’s been a whirlwind. There’s a lot we’ve done, and there’s a lot left to do for before, during, and after the meeting.…
- C&T Round Up for July 2023! This month, we heard about PHIOGEN, a new phage startup, about how the phage therapy system works at Phage Australia, and about a biobank data platform we're building at Phage Australia.
- The Missing Middle Ground of Phage Therapy: Effective Phage Therapeutics that Bridge Economy, Regulation, and Unprecedented Functionality This week Amanda Burkardt, CEO of the new phage therapy company, PHIOGEN (a spinoff of Baylor College of Medicine and based on the innovations of TAILOR Labs) shares their plans for the company.
- Proof & Provenance: A biobank data platform for coordinating and sharing phages and results How do you design a system that can share data across phage labs and biobanks? But also track where a phage came from and where a phage went? And along the way let each lab selectively pitch in their lab data? We'll get into some higher…
- How our phage therapy system works at Phage Australia At Phage Australia, we're scaling up personalized phage therapy. Jessica Sacher shares an overview of the process, to assist other centers in navigating the challenges of running a successful phage therapy (or other bio-based) service.
- C&T Round Up for June 2023! This month, we really put the CAPS lock in Capsid: from ORACLE to a CARB-X article on SNIPR, to AKTA and DBs, we really capitalized on many deep topics.
- Working with data in biology This week, Jan starts to apply ideas from the previous Data series to the world of biology work and biology data.
- Getting our AKTA-gether: Using the AKTA Flux to purify phages for patients This week I’m excited to share how I’ve been using the AKTA Flux system to purify phages for patients. What used to be overwhelming now feels pretty dreamy. Worth considering for any phage lab making patient-ready preps!
- ORACLE: A great tool for generating many variants of phages This week we have a guest post from Dylan Woolsey, a University of Georgia undergraduate student, who introduces us to ORACLE, a tool for generating phage variants.
- CRISPR phages target E. coli with sharpshooter precision This week we bring you a guest post from CARB-X, which covers how SNIPR Biome uses CRISPR phages to target E. coli with sharpshooter precision.
- C&T Round Up for May 2023! This month, we covered a new phage podcast, launched the Evergreen Phage Meeting sign up site, and talked about using databases for phage work!
- Working with Databases This week, Jan continues his casual "Data Series" of posts to show how phage labs can start using relational databases today, with Airtable.
- Evergreen turns 50: celebrating Dr. Betty Kutter’s legacy This week, we’re proud to open up registration for the Evergreen Phage Meeting. This year’s Evergreen phage meeting will be in-person (!), absolutely packed with science and activities (!!), and will be a celebration of both Betty’s…
- Launch of PhageCast: Bringing the Latest in Bacteriophage Research to Your Ears Want to hear Joana Azeredo talk about phage activity against biofilms? Or Martin Loessner speaking about L-forms and endolysins? How to set up an Appleman´s protocol with Ben Burrowes? This week a group of PhD students in the Azeredo Lab in…
- C&T Round Up for April 2023! This month, we talked about analyzing qPCR results, Phage Australia's official response to the Phage UK inquiry, and got hands on with building a project with ChatGPT!
- Discovering coding (& building an AI tool) as a biologist, thanks to ChatGPT This week, Jessica Sacher shows you how, as a non-coder, she got ChatGPT to help her make a chatbot that knows everything we've published across 220 Capsid & Tail blog posts (almost every week for the last 4.5 years!), how you can play with…
- Phage Australia responds to UK Parliament’s phage inquiry This week, we look at some highlights from a white paper that Phage Australia published as a response to the UK Parliament Inquiry on phage therapy.
- qPCR for phage therapy, part II This week Jessica Sacher continues her 'qPCR for phage therapy' series. She takes us through how we know if our qPCR worked, what to look for, and how to interpret how much phage/bacteria were in our samples based on the results.
- C&T Round Up for March 2023! This month we featured a new phage startup out of Shanghai, and massive write-ups on lab automation, working with tabular data, and using qPCR for phage therapy.
- qPCR as a window into phage therapy This week Jessica Sacher talks about how to use qPCR to count phage and bacteria in patients during phage therapy. This is part I of a multipart series.
- Working with tabular data This week, Jan takes another detour into data-land, playing around with spreadsheets and tabular data, exploring VLOOKUP, pivot tables, and other formulas.
- Learning to Code as a Lab Rat This week we introduce a new guest writer, Thomas Hunt, who will write about his experiences in lab automation.
- CreatiPhage – The Pioneer in China Adam Yang, an intern at Shanghai Institute of Phage, interviewed the co-founder of CreatiPhage, Nannan Wu. CreatiPhage is the first company applying phage therapy to humans in China, and seeks to promote the overall development of phage…
- C&T Round Up for February 2023! This month, we featured a new UK Phage Therapy initiative and wrote about lessons in scaling bio and how to think about data.
- How to think about data This week, Jan goes meta about data. Everyone throws around the term data, but what is it exactly? Jan explores the different kinds of data, how to work with data, and shares some ideas for keeping data neat and tidy.
- Lessons in scaling bio, team science & priorities This week, Jessica Sacher shares learnings from setting up a pipeline for phage production/purification/QC at Phage Australia, and using it to provide phage therapy for our first 3 patients in 2022! Biggest learning: the hardest part about…
- UK Establishing Phage Therapy Infrastructure This week, Dr. Josh Jones from UK Phage Therapy drops an announcement on the establishment of a new UK-based phage therapy screening and manufacturing initiative, which will function as the UK’s national clinical phage centre.
- C&T Round Up for January 2023! This month, we wrote an article for GARDP about phage therapy business models. For this issue, we're also revisiting a couple of gems from Dr. Paul Jaschke's lab!
- Investing in the future of phage therapy This week, we're republishing an article Dr. Jon Iredell and Jessica Sacher wrote for GARDP Revive, the Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership.
- 2023: A look ahead Well hello there, 2023! We’ve made great strides in the past year, gotten our hands wet in the lab (Jessica at least 😉), built data systems, and even delivered phages for patients. This year we aim to do a whole lot more of that! This…
- Reflecting back on 2022 We’re at the end of the year again, and what a whirlwind of a 2022 it’s been! Here's our annual end-of-year reflection on what we're most proud of, what we've accomplished, & those who've helped us along the way!
- On Data Analytics and Biology This week, Jan takes a detour into data analytics! This follows up on the last informal Data Series post designing an auditable, replicable, and accessible phage data system. This time, Jan delves a bit deeper into what data analytics is,…
- C&T Round Up for November 2022! Happy December, everyone. I hope you've all enjoyed your Thanksgiving! Jessica and I took a short break in New Zealand and it was sublime. This past month, we featured an article by Adam Yang that explored COVID-19 and phages. We also…
- The secret killer behind COVID-19 and the potential remedy This week, Adam Yang of Lake Forest Academy explores secondary bacterial infections behind COVID-19 deaths, and discusses how phage therapy may be used as a solution.
- Part 3: Building a sustainable ecosystem for phage therapy This week, Ruby CY Lin of Phage Australia dives further into commercialization pathways and opportunities for Phage Australia, and the phage industry as a whole.
- Part 2: Building a sustainable ecosystem for phage therapy This week, Ruby CY Lin of Phage Australia dives further into commercialization pathways and opportunities for Phage Australia, and the phage industry as a whole.
In Part Two of this three-part series, she explores possible phage therapy…
- C&T Round Up for October 2022! This week, we highlight our October feature articles: Dive down the rabbit hole with us on designing phage data systems, building sustainable phage therapy, and get excited for this year's World Phage Week!
- Building a sustainable ecosystem for phage therapy This week, Ruby CY Lin of Phage Australia dives deep into commercialization pathways and opportunities for Phage Australia, and the phage industry as a whole.
In Part One of this three-part series, she explains the importance of phage…
- World Phage Week 2022 This week, Oluwasegun Isaac Daramola and Williams Timilehin Owoeye explain why you should join them in celebrating another spooky World Phage Week!
- How to design a phage data system This week Jan Zheng explores a few design decisions and considerations behind building a system for collecting data from every part of the phage therapy pipeline.
- C&T Round Up for September 2022! This week, we highlight the feature articles we published in September! Learn about main themes from Phage Futures Europe 2022, MetaPhage: a new pipeline for turning raw reads into phage insights, and how to set up a basic phage QC system…
- How do we prove our phages are safe? Patients need safe phages, but most regulators don't yet have official positions on what makes a phage batch safe. This week, Jessica Sacher (Iredell lab, Phage Australia) shares her recent foray into learning about phage quality control…
- MetaPhage: Towards user-friendly phage bioinformatics MetaPhage is a new pipeline for turning raw reads into phage insights. It’s a massive step in the right direction towards one-click phage analysis. Here's my trying (and failing) to run MetaPhage on a laptop, and a short tutorial to get you…
- Looking back on Phage Futures Europe 2022 — Part 2 Phage Futures Europe was recently held in Amsterdam, where the phage biotech field came together to discuss recent progress in clinical phage therapy and commercialization. Jessica Neubauer and Madhav Madurantakam Royam are back this week…
- C&T Round Up for August 2022! This week, we highlight the feature articles we published in August! Learn about phage+AI and how you can get involved, what happened at Phage Futures this year, how phage-making is going at Phage Australia, and meet Phage Directory's…
- PhageAI and natural language processing for in silico characterization of the phage life cycle This week Marcin Lubocki and Piotr Tynecki explain how AI tools like PhageAI can help us characterize our phages faster and more accurately (but only with the help of the phage community!).
- Looking back on Phage Futures Europe 2022 — Part 1 Last month Madhav Madurantakam Royam and Jessica Neubauer attended Phage Futures Europe in Amsterdam, and they've brought us a sneak-peek into what they learned!
- Therapeutic phage-making: how my first batch measured up This week Jessica Sacher shares an update on her work toward setting up a new phage-making system in the Iredell lab (part of Phage Australia).
- We have the best volunteers! Our lovely phage community would not exist without the hard work of some incredible phage enthusiasts! This week, we're recognizing a few of our Phage Directory volunteers for some great stuff they've done lately.
- C&T Round Up for July 2022! This week, we highlight the feature articles we published in July! Learn about Intralytix's past and present, navigating complexity when you start making phages for therapy, and the new phage-bacteria interaction atlas the Gates Foundation…
- Illuminating one of biology’s biggest blind spots There's still too little data on phage-bacteria biology to support scalable therapeutic phage development. This week, Kayla Young of Phase Genomics tells us how proximity ligation-based metagenomic sequencing is enabling the world’s first…
- How to start making phages for therapy This week Jessica Sacher takes us through her process for setting up a new phage-making system in the lab, including making sense of a dizzying array of options, managing overwhelm, and resisting 'optimization creep'.
- Intralytix: then and now This week Madhav Madurantakam Royam, a PhD student at the University of Warwick, talks to Dr. Alexander Sulakvelidze, founder and CEO of Intralytix, one of the first modern phage companies to have products on the market.
- C&T Round Up for June 2022! This week, we highlight the feature articles we published in June! Learn about what happened when the Phage Australia team shipped a phage around the country, Jean-Paul Pirnay's views on phage therapy, and how producing phages has changed…
- Producing phages consistently: then and now This week, Kyle Jackson tackles phage manufacturing. He first enlightens us on how phages have historically been produced and preserved. Then, through a chat with Frenk Smrekar and Barbara Hubad, we learn how JAFRAL helps companies and…
- Phage therapy at the Queen Astrid Military Hospital: a conversation with Jean-Paul Pirnay This week, Madhav Madurantakam Royam, a PhD student at the University of Warwick, talks to Dr. Jean-Paul Pirnay about how the Queen Astrid Military Hospital in Belgium is advancing phage therapy.
- Phage down under: stability of a travelling phage The Phage Australia network recently shipped a purified phage to collaborators across the country, and had everyone titre it and report back. Stephanie Lynch, who spearheaded this effort, tells us what was done and what the team learned.
- C&T Round Up for May 2022! This week, we highlight the feature articles we published in May! Learn about the latest Mycobacterium phage treatment, how we might make our spot tests less subjective, how to get involved in DeSci, and what a phage biologist thought of…
- Diving into a DAO as a scientist: what does help look like? You may have heard people (especially on Twitter) talking about DeSci, or decentralized science. Today Jessica Sacher shares her experience diving into LabDAO, a new DeSci initiative enabling science through a lab space/experiment sharing…
- 500 days of phage beats M. abscessus in the CF lung This week, we highlight a new case report published last week in Cell. It documents the successful phage therapy of a Mycobacterium abscessus infection, which led a 26-year old in Colorado with cystic fibrosis to receive a lung transplant…
- Clinical microbiology meets phage at this year's ECCMID For the first time since 2019 the yearly European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) took place in-person. Jessica Neubauer, MSc student and Phage Directory volunteer, was there to report on all phings phage!
- Spot or Not: A simple system to rate your spot tests How do you turn subjective observations into a quantified, somewhat-less-subjective observations? This week Jan Zheng continues his phage data series, delving into how (and why) the well-known 'Net Promotor Score' used by software companies…
- C&T Round Up for April 2022! This week, we highlight the features we published in April! Catch up on what happened at the last Phage Futures Europe, and learn how to organize your phage biobank data!
- How to organize your biobank data Now that we’ve covered tracking phage metadata and building identities for our phages, it’s time to consider how our phages fit into our biobanks. This week in Capsid and Tail, Jan Zheng explains his thinking on how to organize phage…
- Phage therapy, translated: where is the field at? What's the state of phage commercialization? Longtime Phage Directory volunteers Sheetal Patpatia and Aël Hardy, who attended the last Phage Futures event, report on their key takeaways.
- C&T Round Up for March 2022! This week, we highlight the features we published in March! Learn about how to name your phage, how to track your phages, and how to get pheedback from phage peers!
- The latest on Instill: the peer-to-peer feedback platform With feedback from users, the Instill platform is evolving. This week Katharine Muscat, phage PhD student and volunteer Instill coordinator, shares how members have benefited from and contributed to Instill, and what they've learned from…
- How to name a phage What's in a phage name, and how can we make it count? Should we give phages pet names or serial numbers? This week Jan Zheng continues his informal blog series on phage data, with a new post on how he's thinking about naming phages.
- How to keep track of phages As your phage collection grows, keeping track of your phages and associated data becomes increasingly important. This week, Jan Zheng explores how to rein in all that data before it gets out of control.
- The Phage Directory Slack Community Undergraduate phage enthusiast Sayde Perry’s 2022 guide to the former Phage Directory Slack community, its channels and conversations. The community is now retired.
- C&T Round Up for February! This week, we highlight the features we published in Feb — learn about digital phagograms, phageSuisse and the recently held Bacteriophage Therapy Summit!
- phageSuisse: toward phage therapy in Switzerland phageSuisse is a nonprofit founded to bring together health actors working or wishing to work with phages in Switzerland. This week, Vera Neumeier shares a recap of four recent phageSuisse webinars.
- Digital phagograms: how can we predict phage infectivity? As the field of phage research is increasingly becoming data-driven and intertwined with artificial intelligence (AI), predicting phage-host interactions can provide new biological insights and support the development of personalized phage…
- All good things come in fours: a sneak peek at the 4th annual Bacteriophage Therapy Summit From Feb 14th-16th, the who's who of the phage world is getting together to discuss everything from isolating phages from hospital wastewater to the role of the immune system in phage therapy!
This week, University of Vienna MSc student…
- C&T Round Up for Dec & Jan! This week, we highlight the features we published in Dec & Jan! Learn about combining phages with antibiotics, scaling up phage production, the new Web3 x science movement, and catch Phage Directory's 2021 reflection and 2022 outlook!
- Let's focus the power of Web3 on science & biotech's problems Phage Directory started because Jan (a 'tech person') saw how his skills could help fix inefficiencies in Jessica's field: phage biology. Now, more people like Jan are getting excited to focus on solving problems in science/biology/biotech…
- Which single-use bioreactor is right for me? A bioreactor should provide the ideal environment for cells (and by extension, phages!). But choosing your setup can be tough. This week, Robert Matthew from Cellexus provides a nice explainer to help you understand your options!
- 2022: Building the Operating System for Phage Therapy Good morning, 2022! We’re extremely proud of our work empowering the community, running events like Evergreen and building Instill. This year, we'll be focused on building the “operating system” for phage therapy. From lab workflows to web…
- Reflecting back on 2021 It's our last issue of the year! We reflect on what we're especially proud of from this year, and highlight some stats on where we're at as a community!
Also: a giant thanks to each of our amazing volunteers!
- Molecular multitasking: inhibition of phage infection by aminoglycoside antibiotics In our PHAVES series this fall, Aël Hardy, PhD student at Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany, spoke about his research into the inhibition of phage infection by aminoglycoside antibiotics. Here’s the recording, along with a recap by Sayde…
- C&T Round Up for November 2021 This week, we highlight the feature articles we published in November! Learn about optimizing the route for phage delivery, single use bioreactor technologies vs. traditional solutions, and phage therapy to combat a shell infection in a sea…
- Flipping the turtle back on its flippers: Phage therapy to combat a shell infection in a sea turtle Remember when Shelley the sea turtle got phage therapy, thanks to the phage community? This week, Stephanie Lynch distills main learnings from the paper and shares her interview with Shelley's vet, plus a webinar/Q&A that dives deeper!
- The Modern Laboratory: Single use bioreactor technologies vs. traditional solutions This week, we've got a discussion on the advantages, disadvantages and comparative costs of single use bioreactors vs. traditional solutions, written by Adam Ostrowski, Technical Application Specialist at Cellexus.
- Optimising the route for phage delivery This week, Lizzie Richardson brings us a guest post on optimising the route for phage delivery.
- C&T Round Up for October 2021 This week, we highlight the feature articles we published in October! Learn about the phages being collected around the world, a doctor-patient experience with phage therapy, successful use of phage to treat bacterial prostatitis, and…
- Overcoming barriers to phage commercialization: a conversation with leaders at Cytophage and BiomX This week, McMaster University PhD student Kyle Jackson interviews Cytophage and BiomX executives, who share phage therapy commercialization challenges and progress and a sneak peek into what they'll present at Phage Futures.
You can also…
- Phage therapy successfully treats bacterial prostatitis after multiple failed antibiotic treatments – Behind the case report This week, Apurva Virmani Johri and Pranav Johri of Vitalis Phage Therapy take us behind their recently published phage therapy case report, which describes the successful treatment of a patient with prostatitis using phages (done at the…
- Phage therapy: a doctor-patient experience In our PHAVES series this summer, Dr. Gina Suh, an infectious disease physician at the Mayo Clinic, and John Haverty, a phage therapy patient, spoke about phage therapy from a doctor's and patient's perspective. Here’s the recording, along…
- State of Phage #3: Exploring phage collections We're compiling the results of our State of Phage 2020 Survey, and we're excited to show you a third snapshot of the findings! Today we're focusing on phage collections; which phages are labs collecting, how many do they have of each, and…
- C&T Round Up for September 2021 This week, we highlight the four feature articles we published in September! Learn about a new plaque counting app by Michael Shamash, a new plaque sizing tool by Ellina Trofimova, how Australian pediatrician Ameneh Khatami is treating kids…
- A Window into Evergreen 2021 from the Next Generation of Phage Researchers This week, we're featuring an article co-published with PHAGE Journal highlighting a selection of talks from the Evergreen 2021 conference, written by a group of phage-enthusiastic students and postdocs who attended!
This week's feature…
- Plaque size tool: an easy bioinformatics instrument for phage plaque size measurements This week, we’re featuring a post by Ellina Trofimova, software engineer-turned-MSc student at Macquarie University in Australia. She tells us about the Plaque Size Tool she’s developed, including how it came about and what it can do!
- Phage therapy for difficult-to-treat infections in children, with Dr. Ameneh Khatami In our July PHAVES series, Dr. Ameneh Khatami, a paediatric infectious disease physician and senior lecturer at the University of Sydney, spoke about phage therapy for difficult to treat infections in children. Here’s the recording, along…
- Automating plaque counting with OnePetri using the power of AI — Behind the app This week, we're featuring a post by Michael Shamash, a graduate student at McGill University in Canada, who developed the new phage plaque counting app OnePetri! He takes us through the story behind the app, how it works, and what its…
- C&T Round Up for August 2021 This week, we’re highlighting the three features we published in August! We've got a reflection on African phage scientists' challenges and progress by Raphael Hans Lwesya, a reflection (plus stats!) on Evergreen 2021 (including how to…
- How coevolutionary phage training improves phage efficacy This week, we're featuring a guest post by Joshua Borin, a UC San Diego PhD Candidate. Joshua takes us behind his recent PNAS paper on how coevolutionary phage training leads to improved phage infectivity.
- Evergreen 2021: Many thanks to all 504 phage phans! Last week, in collaboration with Dr. Betty Kutter and her unstoppable team, we helped run the iconic Evergreen International Phage Meeting — but with a twist — this time it was a hybrid virtual/in-person event! We are overjoyed with how it…
- Problems facing phage technology development in Africa This week, we're featuring a guest post by Raphael Hans Lwesya, MSc student at Makerere University in Uganda and founder of thephage.xyz, a new phage-related info hub. Raphael shares his thoughts on phage technology development in Africa,…
- C&T Round Up for July 2021 This week, we’re highlighting the four features we published in July! We've got a sneak-peek into the upcoming Evergreen Phage Meeting, a blog post on Phage Directory's new phage research feedback exchange initiative, 'Instill', an…
- Making your company go viral: Adaptive Phage Therapeutics This week, Kyle Jackson (PhD student at McMaster University) brings us a profile of Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, the clinical-stage phage biotech company commercializing the US Navy's phage collection. This is the first in a new column Kyle…
- A novel phage with unusual pyrimidine nucleotide substitution: Q&A with Dr. Branko Rihtman and Dr. Richard Puxty This week, Madhav Madurantakam Royam interviewed Dr. Branko Rihtman and Dr. Richard Puxty about their new paper describing an unusual nucleotide substitution from deoxythymidine to deoxyuridine in a novel family of phages belonging to…
- Raise your impact with Instill Science Are your manuscripts meeting their potential? We're launching a new community initiative called Instill Science to help you raise your impact (and get credit for helping your fellow phage community members do the same).
- You're invited to the Evergreen International Phage Meeting! In case you haven't heard, the Evergreen Phage Meeting is happening both in person and online this year in Olympia, Washington from Aug 1-6. This week, we're highlighting what to expect from this meeting (via a letter from Betty Kutter) and…
- C&T Round Up for June 2021 This week, we’re highlighting the three feature articles we published in June: a guest blog post by David Sáez and Lorenzo Corsini on breeding better phages, a recap of a clinical phage therapy case presented in PHAVES by Dr. Laura Damioli…
- Viral Host Range Database: an online tool for recording, analyzing and disseminating virus-host interactions Last month in our PHAVES series, Quentin Lamy-Besnier, a PhD student in the Debarbieux lab, introduced the Viral Host Range Database their group has developed. This online resource lets you find, document, analyze and distribute information…
- Freedom from antibiotic purgatory? Salvage phage therapy for cure of spinal hardware infection In our PHAVES seminar series last month, Dr. Laura Damioli and Dr. Greg Canfield (University of Colorado Anschutz) shared their experience treating their first patient with phage therapy for a spinal hardware infection. Here's the…
- ɛ²-phages: naturally bred high-tech phages which are superior to wild types in critical properties This week, we're featuring a guest blog post by David Sáez and Lorenzo Corsini of PhagoMed; they dive into their recent paper describing how they're breeding phages to be better for therapy using a modified Appelman's protocol.
- C&T Round Up for May 2021 This week, we're highlighting the three feature articles we published in May: a 'behind-the-paper' guest post by Steven Sutcliffe and Michael Shamash, a full recap of all six iVoM webinars by Ivone Martins and Luis Melo, and an interview…
- Phages Before the Phrenzy: Part I — An interview with Dr. David Harper, CEO of Evolution Biotechnologies What brought phage therapy to where it is today? This week, we're featuring an interview with Dr. David Harper, CEO of Evolution Biotechnologies, by Curtis Hoffmann, a longtime Phage Directory volunteer. They discuss David's thoughts on…
- Looking back on iVoM: Six webinars covering all aspects of viruses of microbes This week, we've got highlights and recordings for the six "iVoM" webinars we co-hosted with the VoM/ISVM team from Sept 2020 to March 2021! These webinars included talks by 18 expert speakers and brought together more than 1000 unique…
- Inducing prophages in gut bacteria with common oral medications — Behind the paper This week, we're featuring a 'behind the paper' article by Steven Sutcliffe and Michael Shamash, graduate students in the Maurice Lab at McGill University. They dive into their new paper on what happens to gut phages when common oral…
- C&T Round Up for April 2021 This week, we're highlighting the four feature articles we published in April: virtual event recaps by volunteers Rohit Kongari and Stephanie Lynch, a guide on responding to phage therapy requests, and an opinion piece by Mert Selimoglu on…
- Clinical phage therapy, phages for plant pathogens & phage bioinformatics: A triple webinar recap issue! This week, we've got highlights and recordings for 3 webinars we hosted this month: An interview with Dr. Randy Fish on clinical phage therapy for diabetic foot wounds, a talk by Dr. Clara Torres-Barceló on plant pathogen phage research,…
- Phage cocktail-based COVID-19 vaccine may have potential for much longer-term efficacy This week, we're featuring an opinion piece by Dr. Mert Selimoglu (Pakmaya, Turkey) on phage-based COVID vaccines, and the opportunity he sees for using a phage library/cocktail approach to make more effective vaccines.
- How to respond when someone asks you for phage therapy Are you getting phage therapy requests from the public, and wondering how to respond? We've put together a guide + resources you can use (short version: send them our way)!
Bonus: we've included resources for physicians too, including how…
- PHANOTATE: Gene finding in phages For the 2nd webinar of the Phage Bioinformatics Webinar Series jointly organized by IBRC and Phage Directory, we hosted Katelyn McNair, a research scholar at the University of California, Irvine and San Diego State University. This week, we…
- C&T Round Up for March 2021 This week, we're highlighting the three feature articles we published in March: a quick dive into phage and diabetic foot ulcers, a recap of the Phage Futures conference last month, and a recap of Jon Iredell's PHAVES seminar this month on…
- Phage therapy: The Australian experience Earlier this month we hosted PHAVES #13, a talk by Prof. Jonathan Iredell, who shared his group's experience with phage therapy at the Westmead Institute for Medical Research in Sydney, Australia. Here's the recording, along with a recap by…
- Phage Futures Congress 2021: Meeting Recap We attended Kisaco Research's Phage Futures Congress 2021 at the end of February, and now present our recap of the event. We hope to provide a window into what you missed, and/or a refresher if you were there!
- Quick Dive: Diabetic foot ulcers and phage therapy Today we're doing a quick dive into diabetic foot ulcers and phages. What's the problem, what are some ways phages have been used to date, and what's the current status of clinical trials?
- C&T Round Up for February 2021 This week, we're highlighting the four feature articles we published in February: an interview with Richard Alm of CARB-X, part two of our State of Phage survey results, and a recap of the three phage events we hosted last week, written by…
- How to analyze your phage genomes, and stories from a multi-decade phage career: triple webinar recap issue! This week, we (co-)hosted three webinars: Africa Phage Forum #2 with Dr. Evelien Adriaenssens, the first event of a new IBRC Phage Bioinformatics Series with Deborah Jacobs-Sera, and PHAVES #12 with Dr. Betty Kutter. Here are the…
- State of Phage #2: A wide diversity of strains We're compiling the results of our State of Phage 2020 Survey, and we're excited to show you a second snapshot of the findings! Today we're focusing on strain collections; which bacterial species are phage labs collecting, how many do they…
- Funding phage development — a Q&A with CARB-X's Richard Alm This week, we bring you an interview with Dr. Richard Alm, Alliance Director at CARB-X, a major current funder of new antimicrobials, including phage! Richard shares how he sees phages fitting into the clinical landscape, and shares his…
- C&T Round Up for January 2021 This week, we're highlighting the four feature articles we published in January: Phage Directory's 2021 outlook, a guest blog post, an interview, and a first look at our State of Phage survey results! Enjoy!
- State of Phage #1: A wide diversity of backgrounds & phage experience It's been almost three months since we launched our State of Phage 2020 Survey! We're excited to show you a snapshot of the data coming in. Today we're focusing on who responded to the survey: where are they from, what's their career stage,…
- Enough phage for a farm: How Proteon Pharmaceuticals manufactures phages for livestock farming For this week's feature article, we interviewed Dr. Arkadiusz Wojtasik, a Production Director at Proteon Pharmaceuticals, about how his team uses the Cellexus CellMaker to produce phage for livestock farming.
- A fresh look at last century's phages The NCTC in England has freshly re-characterized 100 phages originally collected for bacterial typing in the 1950s-1990s. If you want your phages to last as long as these, this is a great place to deposit!
- 2021: Empowering the phage community Hello 2021!! This year, we're focusing on empowering the phage community with the knowledge and tools it needs to overcome phage research challenges & help others do the same.
- Looking back on the year 2020 For our last issue of 2020, we're reflecting back on Phage Directory's 2020 progress, and the incredible collaborators who have made it possible. We're really proud of the ways we've been able to connect and work with the phage community…
- Bringing phage susceptibility testing to India Pranav and Apurva Johri, founders of Vitalis Phage Therapy, recently set up a new framework that allows patients in India to get phage susceptibility testing done locally. We sat down with Pranav and Apurva to learn more about what this…
- C&T Round Up for November 2020 This week, we're highlighting the four feature articles we published in November: two interviews, a guest blog post, and a recap of the month's PHAVES event!
- Engineering phage ΦX174's genome: a recap of November's PHAVES talk This month, we hosted episode 10 of PHAVES, a talk on phage engineering by Dr. Paul Jaschke, Lecturer at Macquarie University! Here's the recording, along with a recap written by Stephanie Lynch, PhD candidate at La Trobe University (and…
- Ibadan Bacteriophage Research Team: A SEA-PHAGES team with a difference This week, Tolulope Oduselu and Olubusuyi Adewumi of the Ibadan Bacteriophage Research Team describe their recently-launched initiative to foster research participation for undergraduate students at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.
- Finding the good in phage resistance, and balancing research with conference organizing: a Q&A with Prof. Zuzanna Drulis-Kawa For this week's feature article, Rodrigo Monteiro and Graça Pinto interviewed University of Wroclaw Professor Zuzanna Drulis-Kawa about her phage therapy and phage depolymerase enzyme research. She shares how she navigates complex grant…
- Training phage scientists in developing countries: An interview with Prof. Martha Clokie 💯 It’s our 100th issue and 2nd birthday!! Thanks so much to all of you for reading and sharing Capsid & Tail; we wouldn’t have gotten this far without your support!
- C&T Round Up for October 2020 This week, we're highlighting the three feature articles we published in October: an interview, a guest blog post, and a recap of the two PHAVES events we hosted this month. Enjoy!
- From phage scale-up to phage piracy: October's PHAVES talks This month, we hosted two episodes of PHAVES! Here are the recordings, along with brief summaries. Thanks very much to our special guests, Gordon Smith (Fixed Phage), Chloe Jerrold-Jones (Cellexus), and Dr. Rodrigo Ibarra-Chavez (University…
- Phage evolution: an ancient solution to a modern problem This week's feature article was written by Andrew Favor, Nextbiotics bioinformatics advisor and University of Washington PhD student. He takes us behind his recent Scientific Reports paper on a rapid in vitro platform for enhancing phage…
- A phage biologist's path from academia to industry and back — an interview with Dr. Ben Burrowes For this week's feature article, Dr. Rohit Kongari interviewed Dr. Ben Burrowes, Senior Scientist at the Center for Phage Technology at Texas A&M University, about his path from phage PhD to industry scientist, to running his own…
- C&T Round Up for September 2020 This week, we're highlighting the four feature articles we published in September: two guest blog posts, an interview, and a recap of the two PHAVES events we hosted this month. Enjoy!
- From gut phages to fish phages: a recap of September's PHAVES talks This month, we hosted two episodes of PHAVES! Here's your recap of both, along with links to the recordings. Thanks very much to our special guests, Dr. Sabrina Green and Dr. Panos Kalatzis.
- Women in Phage — an initiative to encourage female phage scientists This week, Fatma Abdelrahman, a research assistant at Zewail City of Science and Technology in Egypt, announces the launch of her new initiative for supporting women who work with phage.
- Using the CellMaker to manufacture phage: Q&A with TechnoPhage's Manuel Garrido This week, we interviewed Dr. Manuel Garrido, a Production Specialist at TechnoPhage, about how they've scaled their phage manufacturing with the help of the Cellexus CellMaker.
- Pharmacists and phage therapy: two pharmacy students weigh in This week, two PharmD students from different countries, Christine Thompson (USA) and Yasmine Bendimrad (Morocco), share their views on pharmacists' roles in antimicrobial stewardship and how phages could fit into their scope as future…
- C&T Round Up for August 2020 This week, we're highlighting the three feature articles we published in August: two interviews and a recap of the two PHAVES events we hosted this month. Enjoy!
- From phage therapy to viromics and phage careers: a recap of August's PHAVES This month, we hosted two episodes of PHAVES! Here's your recap of both, along with links to the recordings. Thanks very much to our special guests, Pranav Johri, Apurva Virmani Johri, and Dr. Evelien Adriaenssens.
- High-throughput genetic tools for phage biology: An interview with Dr. Vivek Mutalik This week, Dr. Rohit Kongari interviewed Dr. Vivek Mutalik of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory about his journey to become a phage researcher, and how he's using his engineering background and penchant to develop tools to answer…
- How the Félix d'Hérelle Center manages its phages Since 2003, Denise Tremblay has managed the phage collection at the Félix d'Hérelle Reference Center for Bacterial Viruses at the Université Laval in Quebec City, Canada. We interviewed Denise about how the center collects, stores and…
- C&T Round Up for July 2020 This week, we're rounding up an extra helping of July 2020's phage news and research.
- From phage-disinfectant combos to phage AI: a recap of July's PHAVES This month, we hosted two episodes of PHAVES! Here's your recap of both, along with links to the recordings. Thanks very much to our special guests, Dr. Elyse Stachler and Piotr Tynecki!
- Scaling up phage production: Q&A with Cellexus CEO This week, we interviewed Gavin Hands, CEO of Cellexus, about the company's history of helping phage researchers and biotech companies scale up their phage production.
- Laying the groundwork for the next level of phage research in the Philippines This week, Donna May Papa, Assistant Professor at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippines, tells us about her lab's journey into phage research, and their plans for the future.
- Using the little things to tackle the big things: Can we use phages to impact climate change? This week, Jess Friedersdorff of Aberystwyth University in Wales tells us about her fascinating research into phages of the rumen microbiome.
- C&T Round Up for June 2020 This week, we're rounding up an extra helping of June 2020's phage news and research.
- Kicking off PHAVES, our virtual event series! We kicked off PHAVES this Tuesday! We discussed Phage Directory's origin story and future directions, answered questions from the community, and hosted a series of small-group breakout sessions. Here's how it all went!
- Phage lysins as simple as Lego This week, Prof. Yves Briers of Ghent University in Belgium takes us behind the scenes of his group's new paper on an efficient new way of engineering thousands of phage lysins at once.
- Phages for Global Health: Building phage laboratory capacity in East Africa Dr. Ritah Nakayinga attended the 4th Phages for Global Health workshop in Tanzania this year. This week she shares her experience at the workshop, its impact on her research, and the importance of phage training like this in East Africa.
- C&T Round Up for May 2020 Continuing the new, once-monthly Capsid & Tail format we started in April, this week we're rounding up an extra helping of May 2020's phage news.
- Could phages cure asthma? This week, we're spotlighting CURE, a multidisciplinary project laying the foundation for treating and curing asthma with phages.
- The connection between alginate regulation and anti-CRISPR: Q&A with Dr. Adair Borges This week, Capsid & Tail's volunteer editor Dr. Rohit Kongari talks to UCSF's Dr. Adair Borges about the unexpected connection she's uncovered between phage anti-CRISPRs and the Pseudomonas alginate pathway.
- Creating a searchable directory of phages We're excited to share a sneak-peek into our progress toward creating a global phage catalogue and search tool!
- C&T Round Up for April 2020 It's a challenge to pick from so many exciting phage-related developments each week, and our backlog is overflowing! So in place of a Feature Article, we're dedicating this week's issue to sharing an extra helping of phage news and articles…
- Not all viruses: Bacterial viruses against canine pyoderma Phages for dogs too? This week, Stephanie Lynch, a PhD candidate at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, tells us about her research into phages and endolysins to treat multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius infections…
- Finding, using and classifying viruses: a Q&A with Dr. Evelien Adriaenssens This week, Graça Pinto and Rodrigo Monteiro bring us a Q&A with Dr. Evelien Adriaenssens about her career studying phages and viromes, her thoughts on manipulating microbiomes with viruses, and how viral classification is changing.
- Phage Futures Congress 2020: Meeting Recap The last time we were at a conference, it was Phage Futures Congress 2020 (Feb 5-6, 2020). Since we're all working from home, it's a perfect time to reflect back on the phage development community's recent progress.
- Phages to treat secondary bacterial infections in COVID-19 patients? Can phages help COVID patients? We've been hearing chatter about this subject from the phage community over the last few days, so we've decided to start the conversation here and keep it going. What, if anything, can the phage community do…
- Apply for Phage Directory-VoM Writing Awards! Attention student and postdoctoral phage biologists planning to attend Viruses of Microbes 2020 in Portugal this year! Phage Directory will be sponsoring two cash awards in collaboration with the Viruses of Microbes organizing committee,…
- Online communities and working from home In the spirit of social distancing and working from home, this week we're exploring some ideas and tools that enable online communities and allow teams to collaborate from around the world and to work from home.
- Tailoring phages for patients: Inside Baylor College of Medicine's TAILΦR initiative This week, a group of researchers led by Dr. Anthony Maresso at Baylor College of Medicine describe their new initiative, TAILΦR, which makes phages tailored to patients' infections.
- How to find phages for your research Need phages for your research? This week, we bring you a guide on how to use Phage Directory to find the phages you need.
- Insights into the elusive RNA bacteriophages This week, Julie Callanan, a PhD student at APC Microbiome Ireland and University College Cork, introduces us to RNA phages, why they're so elusive, and how her research is beginning to unravel their secrets.
- International Conference on Bacteriophage Research and Antimicrobial Resistance: Meeting Recap This week, Dr. Ramesh Nachimuthu reflects on the ICBRAMR conference, which took place in Vellore, India in December 2019 and focused on the promise of phages in the fight against antimicrobial resistance.
- Patient perspective: My life since learning of phage therapy one year ago This week, Ella Balasa, a cystic fibrosis patient who received phage therapy from Yale researchers in 2019, tells her story.
- Phage manufacturing challenges and how academic-commercial collaboration can help This week, we bring you an interview with Danish Malik, Senior Lecturer at Loughborough University. He tells us about current challenges with phage manufacturing, including what phage companies need to think about, and how…
- How can phage companies protect their intellectual property? This week, we bring you an interview with Michele Wales, founder of the legal firm InHouse Patent Counsel. She tells us about the unique challenges phage companies face in protecting their IP, and why she's optimistic about what's to come.
- Phage Futures Europe 2019: Meeting Recap Last Fall, we attended the Phage Futures Europe conference, which covered phage commercialization with a focus on how European regulators are thinking about phage therapy.
This week, we present our full recap of that event, just in time to…
- Bringing software to the phage field Happy New Year, phage enthusiasts! This week, we share how we plan to help the phage research community systematize and standardize phage data collection in 2020.
- Phages against porcine enterotoxigenic E. coli: a Christmas tale This week, Dr. Michela Gambino, a postdoc in the PHAGEBio group at the University of Copenhagen, tells us about the importance of pork in Denmark, and about their group's search for phages against E. coli in pigs.
- Raising awareness of phage therapy among physicians This week, Aël Hardy, an MD-PhD student at Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany, explores physicians’ awareness about phages and how it could be improved. He interviewed two French physicians who recently used phages to treat some of their…
- A new phage consortium hosts its first public lecture This week, Dr. Urmi Bajpai, a phage researcher in New Delhi, India and co-creator of the International Bacteriophage Research Consortium, tells us about a public phage therapy lecture her Consortium held last month to raise awareness of…
- Phage training reaches East Africa This week, Dr. Atunga Nyachieo and Ivy Mutai of the Institute of Primate Research in Nairobi, Kenya tell us about how phage research training began at their institute in 2017, how it continues to grow, and the impact it's had so far.
- Constructing phage libraries for therapy This week, we're highlighting a paper published by Shelley Gibson and colleagues at Baylor College of Medicine and the VA Medical Center in Houston, Texas. They've constructed and characterized phage libraries against three pathogens, and…
- The state of antibiotic resistance in the US and Canada This week, we provide an overview of two major new antibiotic resistance reports: one from the US (CDC) and one from Canada. We provide a few takeaways, briefly compare the reports, and hope to inspire you to dive in to learn more about the…
- The struggles, the pain, and the prospects: Doing phage work in a resource-limited setting This week, Nnaemeka Emmanuel Nnadi, a Lecturer at Plateau State University in Bokkos, Nigeria, shares some of the challenges his phage research lab faces due to their resource-limited setting.
- MB Pharma: Building on phage therapy traditions in the Czech Republic This week, Milan Buňata of MB Pharma, a Czech company that's recently gotten into phage, tells us about phage therapy traditions in the Czech Republic, what their company is working toward, and their interest in collaborating with the phage…
- Year One of Capsid & Tail We’ve been publishing Capsid & Tail for a year now, and while some of you have been here since the early days, we know many of you have found us relatively recently. So this week, we’ve gone through our archive to dig up some of our…
- Phages for musculoskeletal infections This week we highlight a recent paper on using phage therapy to treat severe musculoskeletal infections (osteomyelitis). A multidisciplinary group in Belgium made up of surgeons, infectious disease physicians, pharmacists, microbiologists…
- The Nagoya Protocol and phages: an introduction You may have heard of the Nagoya Protocol in the context of isolating or sharing phages or bacteria. But what is the Nagoya Protocol, and how does it apply to phage research and development? This week, we've put together a primer to help…
- Using Galaxy for phage genome annotation This week, we're covering an introductory phage genome annotation workshop that was taught at the 2019 Evergreen Phage Conference. The workshop, Phage Genomics with Galaxy and Apollo, was taught by Jason Gill, a professor at the Center for…
- Optimizing phage amplification Are you a company or lab that needs to produce phages in high quantities? This week, Craig Loftus of Cellexus tells us about how their CellMaker system can help you get higher phage titres in less time and with less cleaning.
- Evergreen Phage 2019: Meeting Recap Hello phage people! It’s been about a month since Evergreen, and we’re ready with our wrap-up post. We’ve covered highlights, themes, and what really excited us about the conference!
- Feeding phages to chickens: one of the first farm trials How close are we to being able to treat chickens with phages? This week, we cover a recent study published by Viviana Clavijo and colleagues from the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. They tested a 6-phage cocktail on chickens in a…
- PhageUGAL Summer School: Infecting Romanian research with phage This week, Colin Buttimer and colleagues from APC Microbiome in Ireland and the University of Galati in Romania share their inspiring experience organizing and teaching Romania's first phage summer school. Because of their success, a food…
- Finding a phage community on Twitter This week, Paulina Deptula, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen, shares her experience using Twitter to find both phages for her research and a supportive community ready to help.
- State of the regulatory affair: Regulation of phage therapy in Australia This week, phage researchers and clinicians from the Westmead Institute and Westmead Hospital brief us on how phage therapy is regulated in Australia, through the lens of their experience treating 14 patients with IV phage therapy.
- NCTC re-launches its phage collection NCTC, a culture collection that supplies bacterial strains around the world, is re-launching its phage collection. How did this come about, and what does this mean for the phage community? We interviewed a group of NCTC microbiologists to…
- Phage Directory expands! What’s changing and what’s staying the same This week is a special, exciting week for Phage Directory! We’ve got big news pertaining to funding, new directions, and a website makeover! And to balance out all the NEW, our feature article this week focuses on something that’s staying…
- Phage therapy in the human gut This week, Sabrina Green, a graduate student at Baylor College of Medicine, tells us how gut pathogens like ExPEC could be treated with phages, describes the challenges, and highlights her own research on the topic.
- A phage enthusiast’s highlights from ASM Microbe 2019 This week, Siân Owen, a postdoctoral fellow studying prophage biology at Harvard University, gives us the scoop on the phage side of this year’s ASM Microbe conference.
- Regulating phage therapy: Let’s build a foundation for our future This week, Dan Evans, a research technician in the Van Tyne lab at the University of Pittsburgh, takes us through the regulatory challenges keeping phage therapy out of the mainstream, highlights ways to overcome these hurdles, and suggests…
- Getting high school students into phage labs This week, we’re showcasing a story we received from Karen Adler, an MSc student in Dr. Ronen Hazan's lab at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She tells us about the phage work their lab is doing with high school students, some of the…
- Phage Therapy Applications in Aquaculture Bacterial diseases cause significant losses in the global fish farming (aquaculture) industry, and phages are being explored as a solution.
- The Declaration of Helsinki and Phage Therapy When compassionate phage therapy case reports are described in published works, the Declaration of Helsinki often gets mentioned. But where did this declaration come from, why is it referenced so often, and how does it apply to phage…
- How the Queen Astrid Military Hospital processes phage requests The Queen Astrid Military Hospital in Brussels has treated patients with phages since 2007, but lately, they've had a lot more phage therapy requests. This week, we're highlighting a recent report describing who's doing the requesting, what…
- Improving access to phage therapy in India We interviewed Pranav Johri, a former phage therapy patient who founded Vitalis Phage Therapy to help others access phage therapy, especially in his home country of India.
- Exploring viral ecology tools at the OSU Viromics Workshop UC Denver postdoc Dr. Anushila Chatterjee attended this year's Ohio State University Viromics Workshop. Here's her report on what was covered!
- Phage banks around the world Where can you buy phages, and where can you deposit yours? This week, we take a tour of phage banks around the world.
- First case of engineered phage therapy This week, we highlight a new paper documenting the first use of engineered phages in human therapy, published yesterday by Rebekah Dedrick, Carlos Guerrero-Bustamante, and colleagues in Nature Medicine.
- Book Review: The Perfect Predator What love, community, and phages can do: this week, we bring you a review of Steffanie Strathdee and Tom Patterson's phage therapy memoir, The Perfect Predator.
- Phages as diagnostic tools Beyond therapeutics, phage-based diagnostics show the versatility of phages in biotech. This week, guest writer Cathy Nguyen takes us through three examples of phage-based diagnostics.
- Compassionate phage therapy Where is the world at with compassionate phage therapy? This week, Dr. Shawna McCallin highlights a new review (co-authored with us at Phage Directory and with Dr. Ben Chan at Yale) of phage case reports published to date.
- Phages to treat our most vulnerable patients Should phage therapy be considered for pregnant women? This week, Dr. Lucy Furfaro introduces the field of perinatal phage research.
- Collaboration leads to phage therapy success The first case of phage therapy in Israel shows how patients can benefit from collaborations between academia, medicine, military and biotech.
- Using zebrafish to model phage therapy This week, we highlight a useful new animal model for the phage therapy community.
- How do we commercialize phage therapy? A full recap of Phage Futures 2019 We attended Phage Futures 2019 at the end of January, and now present our full recap of the event.
- What's it like to help with phage crowdsourcing? To understand what it's like to take part in phage crowdsourcing, we interviewed five labs who've contributed phages on behalf of a patient.
- Studying phage-host coevolution in the lab How is phage-host coevolution studied in the lab, and what can it tell us?
- Incentives for phage drug development A look into government incentives for antimicrobial development, and how they apply to phage therapeutic development.
- Alternatives to patenting phages: trade secrecy In past issues, we covered what it means to patent something & whether patenting works for phages. In this issue, we dive into an alternative to patenting: trade secrecy.
- Impressions of Phage Futures 2019 This week, we attended Phage Futures Congress 2019, which we found to be a huge success!
- Patenting phages, part II: What makes something patentable? Simply having a patent on something doesn’t actually protect your invention. That patent has to actually hold up in court. How is this determined, and what kind of chance do phages stand?
- Breaking down phage patentability You may have heard through the grapevine that “phages can’t be patented”, but several phage patents exist, and biotech and pharma are investing in phage-based therapeutics. What’s the deal?
- Where in the world (and how) can I get phage therapy? People are starting to ask questions about phage therapy. We need your help to put together an FAQ. Do they qualify? How can they get it, and where do they get it?
- New reporting standards for uncultivated viral genomes Have you submitted genome sequences for phages that haven’t been cultured yet? Here’s what you should report if and when you do.
- Capsids in the classroom (and a challenge for 2019) This week, we’re sharing insights from our experience talking to middle school kids about phages, phage therapy, and Phage Directory.
- Tweaking the microbiome with phages: Q&A with BiomX CBO Assaf Oron This week, we bring you a Q&A with BiomX CBO Assaf Oron.
- Belgium’s new brand of phage therapy This week, we explore Belgium's unique new way of treating patients with phages...
- Special issue: An update on our current phage crowdsourcing campaign To provide a window into what happens during a phage hunt, we're devoting this issue to showing some of what's happened over the last three weeks. We've put together an infographic to help illustrate how labs across the globe have come…
- Happy (American) Thanksgiving! We’re incredibly humbled by all the wonderful feedback and for your help in spreading the word about Capsid & Tail and Phage Directory. Thank you!!
- Reflecting on our first year For this week’s issue, we’d like to reflect on our first year as Phage Directory. We’re one year old this week!
- Phage crowdsourcing This is the second post in a series on how patients are being treated with phages outside of traditional clinical trials.
- "The eIND route”: How do people currently get phage therapy in the US? This is the first of a series of posts about how patients are being treated with phages outside of traditional clinical trials.
- Clinical trials: Are phages “there yet”? You may have heard that phages "still haven’t made it through clinical trials.” What does this mean, and is anyone making any progress on this? Do you have experience with or knowledge of clinical trials? If you have anything to add,…
- Phage therapy returns to the US Welcome to the first issue of Capsid & Tail, a mini-periodical of links, topics, and commentary that covers the ins and outs of the phage world.