Community posts

Jessica was interviewed on the Development & Research podcast, a new video interview series by biotech investor/economist Ross Rheingans-Yoo about people doing things differently in clinical trials and drug development.

They discussed operational challenges with phage therapy in academic versus clinical settings, why most trials fail due to execution issues rather than fundamental problems with phages, and more!

Check out Development & Research’s other interviews on clinical drug trial inefficiencies and those building the solutions — they are excellent!

The 6th International Conference on Bacteriophage Research & Antimicrobial Resistance is taking place November 12–13, 2025, in Varanasi, India.

Hosts: the Institute of Medical Sciences–Banaras Hindu University along with the Society for Bacteriophage Research and Therapy.

The conference aims to advance phage applications in health, environment, food, and antimicrobial resistance.

Abstracts are due September 10, 2025.

The Interdisciplinary Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance and Innovation (IMARI) is coming up early next year on January 28-30, 2026 in Las Vegas.   The meeting will bring together the top scientists, innovators, and cross-sector leaders to address one of health care’s most resistant problems: AMR. But we can’t do that without your contributions.   ASM and IDSA are looking for the latest research across the innovation pipeline – from uncovering emerging resistance mechanisms to advancing next-generation therapeutics and accelerating translation into clinical studies.   Mark your calendar for the meeting (registration will open soon!) and begin preparing your abstract to submit by October 1, 2025. I hope to see you – and your research – at the meeting!

Naia Novy (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and colleagues published a new paper on multiobjective machine learning design of phage specificity, showing deep learning can successfully design T7 phages with precisely tuned infectivity, specificity, and generality across diverse E. coli strains. They could even make T7 have the completely opposite host range compared to wild type, just by changing up its RBP according to the ML model's suggested sequence!

Shelby Andersen (University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus) and colleagues published a new paper on systematic phage gene function interrogation, showing PhageMaP enables high-throughput screening of phage mutant libraries to decipher genotype-phenotype relationships.

Zhiying Zhang (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) and colleagues published a new paper on a membrane-embedded Kiwa defense supercomplex mechanism, showing KwaA and KwaB form transmembrane complexes that detect phage attachment and bind DNA to block replication without killing host cells.

Hannah Kapoor (Oregon State University) and colleagues published a new paper on phage-mediated TLR2 signaling against intracellular Mycobacterium abscessus, showing certain mycobacteriophages stimulate TLR2 signaling and NLRP3 inflammasome activation in macrophages, significantly reducing intracellular M. abscessus survival through enhanced innate immune responses.

Amit Vikram (Intralytix) and colleagues published a new paper on phage cocktail biocontrol in wheat milling operations, showing significant E. coli O157:H7 reductions of 1.4-3.1 log CFU/g without affecting flour quality or baking properties.

The 6th International Conference on Bacteriophage Research & Antimicrobial Resistance is taking place November 12–13, 2025, in Varanasi, India.

Hosts: the Institute of Medical Sciences–Banaras Hindu University along with the Society for Bacteriophage Research and Therapy.

The conference aims to advance phage applications in health, environment, food, and antimicrobial resistance.

Abstracts are due September 10, 2025.

The Interdisciplinary Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance and Innovation (IMARI) is coming up early next year on January 28-30, 2026 in Las Vegas.   The meeting will bring together the top scientists, innovators, and cross-sector leaders to address one of health care’s most resistant problems: AMR. But we can’t do that without your contributions.   ASM and IDSA are looking for the latest research across the innovation pipeline – from uncovering emerging resistance mechanisms to advancing next-generation therapeutics and accelerating translation into clinical studies.   Mark your calendar for the meeting (registration will open soon!) and begin preparing your abstract to submit by October 1, 2025. I hope to see you – and your research – at the meeting!

Saima Aslam and colleagues at University of California, San Diego have announced Phase I/II phage vs placebo trial for recurrent E. coli UTIs in female kidney transplant recipients.

Jérémy Cherbuin (Lausanne University Hospital) and colleagues published a new paper on in vivo podovirus resistance via tarS mutations, showing tarS disruption causes phage 66 resistance in MSSA endocarditis through impaired wall teichoic acid β-GlcNAcylation.

Jiayu Gu (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and colleagues published a new paper on crosstalk between inovirus core gene and accessory toxin-antitoxin system, showing RepG4 protein from Pf4 phage triggers degradation of PfpC antitoxin, coordinating polylysogeny in Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms.

Matt Walker (Columbia University) and colleagues published a new paper on RNA-guided flagellar remodeling by temperate phages, showing prophages use TldR transcription factors to alter host flagellar composition, enhancing bacterial motility, immune evasion, and gut colonization fitness.

Andrian Gajigan (University of Hawaii at Manoa) and colleagues published a new preprint on a dinoflagellate giant virus with a micron-length tail with visual similarities to a phage. They show PelV-1’s 459 kb genome encodes diverse metabolic genes and a 2.3 µm tail, expanding marine virus diversity.

Sophia Zborowsky (Institut Pasteur) and colleagues published a new paper on macrophage interference with phage therapy efficacy, showing alveolar macrophages reduce phage density through phagocytosis and adsorption inhibition, limiting therapeutic efficacy against Pseudomonas aeruginosa pneumonia in mice.

Mengyu Li (University of Sydney) and colleagues published a new paper on long-term stability of inhalable phage powder formulations, showing spray-dried phage powders maintained viability over four years with 0.97-2.49 log titer reduction, with higher lactose concentrations providing better biological preservation despite decreased aerosol performance.

Zainab Dere (Florida State University) and colleagues published a new paper on optimal phage therapy control strategies, showing mathematically that phages can suppress antibiotic-resistant bacteria and offering a clinically translatable implementation framework.

Naïma Madi (McGill University) and colleagues published a new paper on ranking phage predation as dehydration determinant, showing the phage-to-pathogen ratio is a top classifier of severe dehydration in cholera patients, just behind age and admission site.

Martin Plymoth (Westmead Hospital, Australia) and colleagues published a new paper on Australian physician attitudes toward phage therapy, showing 97% of infectious disease specialists would consider using phage therapy meeting safety guidelines, with preferences for Gram-negative pathogens and cystic fibrosis applications.

Fatma Abdelrahman, founder of Women in Phage, invites phage scientists to complete her survey on women’s experiences and challenges in phage research. Share your insights to shape future support and inspire the next generation.

Phage Australia and colleagues has announced ISO 9001:2015 certification for its therapeutic phage biobank-to-bedside pipeline! ISO 9001 certification not only enhances Phage Australia's operational efficiency, but also ensures their products meet the rigorous safety and quality requirements required for phage therapy.

Join Evergreen 2025 Virtually!

Phagebiotics Research Foundation is excited to announce a virtual attendance option for the 26th Biennial Evergreen International Phage Meeting

📅 August 3–8, 2025 | 📍 Knoxville, Tennessee

In response to overwhelming demand and ongoing global travel challenges, we're making it possible for phage enthusiasts, researchers, and students around the world to participate in real time—no matter where you are.

For a registration fee of $125, virtual participants will receive: • Live-stream access to keynote sessions and oral presentations • Moderated Q&A access via WhatsApp, where you can engage directly with speakers through a live, dedicated group • Daily email updates with livestream links

💡 Your contribution supports scholarship opportunities for students and researchers from low- and middle-income countries, ensuring inclusive participation and continued innovation in the field of phage research.

🧬 Philanthropy from within is a powerful way to advance phage science.

🎟️ Register now

Once registered, we’ll send daily livestream links to the email address you provide. Please ensure it’s the best email for day-of access.

We look forward to having you join us online for Evergreen 2025 – Knoxville as we celebrate over five decades of scientific progress and global collaboration in phage research.

Tom Denes & Ria Kaelin, Co-Chairs, 26th Biennial Evergreen International Phage Meeting Phagebiotics Research Foundation

As part of the Evergreen Phage Meeting, Phages for Global Health is organizing a pre-conference workshop on phage purification technologies.

It will include six experts giving short presentations on different purification techniques that could be used to prepare phages for therapeutic applications.

If you aren't able to attend the conference in person, but are interested in attending this workshop virtually, please register via this online form.

Clara Torres-Barceló (University of Montpellier) and colleagues introduce the Phylogenetic Host-Range Index (PHRI) — a new metric to classify phages as specialists or generalists based on bacterial genetic diversity.

Using phages infecting Ralstonia spp. from Mauritius and Reunion, they reveal context-dependent virulence–host range trade-offs and show generalist phages are more frequently targeted by CRISPR-Cas systems. Their work bridges ecological theory and application in biocontrol.

Rabia Fatima (McMaster University) and colleagues have published a new review on phage-antibiotic synergy against Pseudomonas, synthesizing clinical successes and the mechanisms behind them while underscoring the tenuous links between current in-vitro assays and patient outcomes. They call for standardized protocols to bridge this gap.

Toni Nagy (University of Colorado, Boulder) and colleagues published a new paper on systematic identification of phage immune triggers, showing that screening 400 phage proteins across 72 E. coli strains revealed over 100 phage-host immune interactions, discovering novel defense system PD-T2-1 and identifying major capsid proteins as Avs8 activators.

Chujin Ruan (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag)) and colleagues published a new paper on how phage-mediated peripheral kill-the-winner facilitates the maintenance of costly antibiotic resistance.

Afif Jati (Monash University) and colleagues published a new paper in npj Viruses on how highly stable phages PIN1 and PIN2 have hallmarks of flagellotropic phages but infect immotile bacteria.

Phages 2025 Oxford — 15th International Conference

Dates: 01-02 September 2025

Email: PhageOxford@gmail.com

X: @PhageOxford; Hashtag: #PhgOx25

Important Dates: • Poster Abstracts: 15 Aug 2025 • Digital Posters and flash-talk videos: 25 Aug 2025 • Registration deadline: 29 Aug 2025

We warmly invite you to attend our 15th annual Oxford bacteriophage conference – the longest running phage conferences series in Europe, and the second longest running phage conference globally – which will be held on 01-02 September 2025 as a ‘virtual/in-person’ hybrid event at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, UK. With the rapidly growing interest in bacteriophage therapy to tackle antimicrobial resistance across the globe, we believe this conference will provide an excellent platform for the bacteriophage community to share new ideas, network with colleagues and develop new collaborations.

Taruna Anand and colleagues (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) created a new educational phage app, providing an educational resource on phage biology, detection techniques, properties, and applications in therapy for students, researchers, and professionals in microbiology.

Join Evergreen 2025 Virtually!

Phagebiotics Research Foundation is excited to announce a virtual attendance option for the 26th Biennial Evergreen International Phage Meeting

📅 August 3–8, 2025 | 📍 Knoxville, Tennessee

In response to overwhelming demand and ongoing global travel challenges, we're making it possible for phage enthusiasts, researchers, and students around the world to participate in real time—no matter where you are.

For a registration fee of $125, virtual participants will receive: • Live-stream access to keynote sessions and oral presentations • Moderated Q&A access via WhatsApp, where you can engage directly with speakers through a live, dedicated group • Daily email updates with livestream links

💡 Your contribution supports scholarship opportunities for students and researchers from low- and middle-income countries, ensuring inclusive participation and continued innovation in the field of phage research.

🧬 Philanthropy from within is a powerful way to advance phage science.

🎟️ Register now

Once registered, we’ll send daily livestream links to the email address you provide. Please ensure it’s the best email for day-of access.

We look forward to having you join us online for Evergreen 2025 – Knoxville as we celebrate over five decades of scientific progress and global collaboration in phage research.

Tom Denes & Ria Kaelin, Co-Chairs, 26th Biennial Evergreen International Phage Meeting Phagebiotics Research Foundation

As part of the Evergreen Phage Meeting, Phages for Global Health is organizing a pre-conference workshop on phage purification technologies.

It will include six experts giving short presentations on different purification techniques that could be used to prepare phages for therapeutic applications.

If you aren't able to attend the conference in person, but are interested in attending this workshop virtually, please register via this online form.

Looking for lytic phage against Streptococcus mutans strains NLML9, N66, and/or UA159. Bonus points if for a lytic phage against Streptococcus gordonii DL1! Thanks so much! — Amelia Schmidt

Phage Australia at Westmead Health Precinct is hosting a course called Phage Therapy 101 for Healthcare Professionals on Nov 14, 2025, aiming to equip prescribers with practical know-how for safe, genomics-guided phage therapy.

Recent microbiology graduate applying to graduate schools. Looking for programs focusing on ABR pathogens and/or molecular phage biology. Would greatly appreciate a chance to chat about opportunities in the field. Thanks! — Ivan

Marina Mahler (University of Otago) and colleagues published a new paper on arabinosyl-hydroxy-cytosine DNA modifications, showing that these modifications enable phages to evade DNA-targeting CRISPR-Cas and restriction systems while remaining sensitive to RNA-targeting defenses.

Per Kristian Thorén Edvardsen (Norwegian University of Life Sciences) and colleagues published a new paper on a cryptic prophage endolysin with muramidase activity. They solve its crystal structure and show 10,000-fold higher activity than lysozyme against P. aeruginosa peptidoglycan.

Xiang Hou (Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine) and colleagues published a new paper on gut phage-induced macrophage reprogramming, showing phages epigenetically prime macrophages via IL-10 to generate LPS-tolerant innate memory.

Xiang Hou (Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China) and colleagues published a new paper on a repressor, RptR, that controls Type I restriction modification system defence islands. They show that RptR binds TAGCTA repeats to silence the island until phage infection lifts repression.

Is passion enough for to keep our industry going? Jennifer Leeds (ex-Novartis; one of the microbiologists who had to help shut down Novartis’ infectious disease department) published a new perspective on antibiotic R&D talent drain, sharing her thoughts on how workforce collapse threatens future antimicrobial innovation pipelines, and what she sees as possible solutions.

The 9th International Conference on Bacteriology and Microbiology 2025 is a globally recognized scientific event bringing together researchers, microbiologists, healthcare professionals, and industry experts to explore the latest advancements in bacterial research and microbiological applications.

Themed "Microbial Frontiers: Exploring Bacteria in Health, Industry, and the Environment," this two-day event will feature keynote lectures, oral and poster presentations, workshops, and networking sessions. Topics will include antimicrobial resistance, environmental microbiology, microbial diagnostics, and microbiome research.

Head to Paris November 13-14, 2025 to connect with global experts and share insights that are shaping the future of microbiological science.

The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) are hosting the Interdisciplinary Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance and Innovation, taking place on January 28-30, 2026. The conference aims to advance antimicrobial drug discovery and development through cross-disciplinary collaboration among researchers, clinicians, industry leaders, and policymakers.

Precisio Biotix Therapeutics and the Mayo Clinic have announced their first patient dosed with ClyO staph lysin for multidrug-resistant prosthetic joint infection treatment.

Iddo Weiner (BiomX Ltd) and colleagues published a new paper on their nebulized phage cocktail for cystic fibrosis, showing BX004-A met safety endpoints and demonstrated potential reduction in P. aeruginosa sputum burden in first-in-human trial.

Claudia Campobasso (University of Pisa) and colleagues published a new paper on serum lipid inhibition of phage activity, showing human serum lipids impair Staphylococcus aureus phage infectivity in a strain-specific manner by coating bacterial cells rather than neutralizing phages directly.

Jennifer Sequoia (Stanford University) and colleagues published a new paper on phage DNA detection in umbilical cord blood, showing that phage DNA is present in human fetal circulation at birth, providing evidence of prenatal exposure to phage sequences.

Jiucheng Ma (Zhangjiagang Hospital, Soochow University) and colleagues published a new paper on novel phage therapy for MDR Pseudomonas aeruginosa, showing vB_PaeP_PZH3 effectively reduced bacterial loads and promoted wound healing in mouse infection models.

Why don't we have phage therapy yet? We want to understand why. Come join the fun by tuning into the Podovirus podcast!

🎙️ Most recent episode: Dr. Marisa Azad, infectious disease physician at The Ottawa Hospital, shares her experience leading Canada's first-ever approved ‘n of 1’ phage therapy treatment for a prosthetic joint infection, and discusses what it took to make this happen!

🎧 Listen: Podovirus on Spotify

🎥 Watch: Podovirus on YouTube

Subscribe to get the next episodes!

🩺 Up next: We'll be talking to more clinicians, scientists and phage biotech executives about their experiences implementing phage therapy at their institutions, including the challenges and successes they've encountered along the way.

You’re invited to submit an abstract to the inaugural Conference on Bacteriophages: Biology, Dynamics, and Therapeutics, chaired by Graham Hatfull (University of Pittsburgh) and Robert (Chip) Schooley (UCSD).

Topics range from phage structure and assembly, evolution, and engineering to clinical trials, susceptibly testing, and host/immune responses.

This is organized by The International Antiviral Society–USA (IAS–USA), and will be held October 12-14, 2025, in Washington, DC.

Registration is open as of April 16, 2025! Check out the preliminary program here.

Submit your late-breaking abstract by Aug 13!

Presenting authors who are new investigators may qualify for a scholarship to cover the cost of registration.

Tolka AI Therapeutics has announced expanded access to patient-tailored phage therapy for M. abscessus infections. They're screening patients at five institutions for compassionate use where standard antibiotics have failed.

Dr. Stephen Vaughan (University of Calgary) successfully treated 76-year-old Boyd English's decade-long antibiotic-resistant hip infection using phage therapy. This is the first PJI phage treatment in Western Canada.

Masako Shimamura (Nationwide Children's Hospital and the Ohio State University) and colleagues published a new paper on dual β-lactam therapy for macrolide-resistant M. abscessus, showing successful treatment of two pediatric cases using multi-drug regimens including meropenem-amoxicillin combinations, with one case requiring additional phage therapy for hardware-associated infection clearance.

Kai Wang (Huazhong Agricultural University, China) and colleagues published a new paper on novel trimethoprim resistance genes in phage-plasmids, showing identification of two functional dfrA genes (dfrA50 and dfrA51) that confer trimethoprim resistance and are widely disseminated among pathogenic bacteria.

Jialin Xiang (Wuhan University) and colleagues published a new paper on type IV pili-mediated archaeal virus mutualism, showing that co-resident temperate viruses SNJ1 and SNJ2 establish tripartite mutualistic interactions with their haloarchaeon host through viral-encoded pili serving as receptors.

Michael Doud (University of California, San Diego) and colleagues published a new paper on AI applications in phage therapy, showing how AI can improve phage-host matching, discover novel phage genes, and guide development of synthetic therapeutic phages.

The Global Clinical Phage Rounds (GCPR) is an ongoing forum for discussing phage therapy cases and advances among clinicians and scientists.

The organizers (Greg German, Gina Suh, Jon Iredell and colleagues) are excited to announce a special open 90-minute ‘Journal Forum’ session for their 23rd meeting on June 25, 2025 (5 AM PDT / 8 AM EDT / 2 PM CET / 10 PM AEDT).

This session is open to the broader phage community—including patients, public, government, and industry—and will feature Drs. Jean Paul Pirnay, Sabrina Green, and Sarah Djebara discussing their foundational work on personalized, magistral phage therapy in Belgium.

Read their recent paper here and a popular write-up here.

Register to receive the Zoom link and recording.

Submit questions in advance or during the session here.

More info at https://phagerounds.com. Please share widely!

You’re invited to submit an abstract to the inaugural Conference on Bacteriophages: Biology, Dynamics, and Therapeutics, chaired by Graham Hatfull (University of Pittsburgh) and Robert (Chip) Schooley (UCSD).

Topics range from phage structure and assembly, evolution, and engineering to clinical trials, susceptibly testing, and host/immune responses.

This is organized by The International Antiviral Society–USA (IAS–USA), and will be held October 12-14, 2025, in Washington, DC.

Registration is open as of April 16, 2025! Check out the preliminary program here.

Submit your late-breaking abstract by Aug 13!

Presenting authors who are new investigators may qualify for a scholarship to cover the cost of registration.

Tolka AI Therapeutics has announced expanded access to patient-tailored phage therapy for M. abscessus infections. They're screening patients at five institutions for compassionate use where standard antibiotics have failed.

Precisio Biotix Therapeutics (Delaware-based biotech) announced a newly awarded Gates Foundation grant for engineered lysin discovery targeting bacterial vaginosis.

Alexander Sulakvelidze's team at Intralytix announced U.S. patent allowance for Campylobacter phages, showing strengthened intellectual property protection for CampyShield™, an FDA GRAS-affirmed antimicrobial preparation targeting foodborne Campylobacter in raw meat and poultry products.

Victoria Harman-McKenna (University of Calgary) and colleagues published a new paper on intestinal protection using mycobacteriophages, showing that lining the small intestine with phages protects against Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis and eliminates fecal shedding.

Geunsoo Jung, Hyunwoo Zin (Sejong University, Korea) and colleagues published a new paper on characterization of a plasmid-dependent DNA phage, showing it selectively targets E. coli harboring conjugative plasmids and reduces their abundance without disrupting overall gut microbial diversity.

Katrina Black (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Australia) and colleagues published a new paper on resolving a T1-like bacteriophage outbreak, showing how targeted deletion of an LptD loop conferred resistance to the phage without compromising E. coli growth or protein expression.

You’re invited to submit an abstract to the inaugural Conference on Bacteriophages: Biology, Dynamics, and Therapeutics, chaired by Graham Hatfull (University of Pittsburgh) and Robert (Chip) Schooley (UCSD).

Topics range from phage structure and assembly, evolution, and engineering to clinical trials, susceptibly testing, and host/immune responses.

This is organized by The International Antiviral Society–USA (IAS–USA), and will be held October 12-14, 2025, in Washington, DC.

Registration is open as of April 16, 2025! Check out the preliminary program here.

Submit your late-breaking abstract by Aug 13!

Presenting authors who are new investigators may qualify for a scholarship to cover the cost of registration.

Tolka AI Therapeutics has announced expanded access to patient-tailored phage therapy for M. abscessus infections. They're screening patients at five institutions for compassionate use where standard antibiotics have failed.

Proteon Pharmaceuticals (Łódź, Poland) shared that BAFASAL®, its phage-based feed additive for poultry, has received a majority vote from EU Member States, moving it closer to EU authorisation. Once finalized, it will become the first phage-based zootechnical feed additive approved for use in poultry across the EU.

Vida Štilec (University of Ljubljana) and colleagues published a new paper on high quality preparation and pharmacokinetics of S. epidermidis phage COP-80B in a mouse model. They saw that injection into the joint provided local phage presence in the joint for several days, while intraperitoneally injected phages did not reach the joint space.

Taylor Andrews (Rutgers University) and colleagues published a new paper on re-expansion of host range in RNA phage phi6, showing specialized phi6 strains readily regained broader host ranges through both reversion and compensatory mutations in the P3 spike protein.

Ortal Yerushalmy (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and colleagues published a new paper on phage susceptibility diversity in CF Burkholderia isolates, showing mixed populations of phage-sensitive and phage-resistant Burkholderia in 75% of CF sputum samples tested.

Cristian Crisan (Emory University) and colleagues published a new paper on phages lysing cystic fibrosis S. maltophilia isolates, describing isolation both specialist and generalist phages that infect diverse S. maltophilia strains.

You’re invited to submit an abstract to the inaugural Conference on Bacteriophages: Biology, Dynamics, and Therapeutics, chaired by Graham Hatfull (University of Pittsburgh) and Robert (Chip) Schooley (UCSD).

Topics range from phage structure and assembly, evolution, and engineering to clinical trials, susceptibly testing, and host/immune responses.

This is organized by The International Antiviral Society–USA (IAS–USA), and will be held October 12-14, 2025, in Washington, DC.

Registration is open as of April 16, 2025! Check out the preliminary program here.

Submit your late-breaking abstract by Aug 13!

Presenting authors who are new investigators may qualify for a scholarship to cover the cost of registration.

The World Health Organization published a new report on phage therapy evidence, showing phages can enhance antibiotic treatments against resistant bacteria as part of a One Health approach.

Alexander Harms was interviewed on the PhageCast podcast about the Basel Phage Collection, basic science insights from E. coli phages, and how these findings can predict phage traits.

Tolka AI Therapeutics has announced expanded access to patient-tailored phage therapy for M. abscessus infections. They're screening patients at five institutions for compassionate use where standard antibiotics have failed.

Hello,

I'm looking for phage cocktails for phage therapy to treat and study Sinusitis infections

"Streptococcus pneumoniae Haemophilus influenzae Moraxella catarrhalis Staphylococcus aureus Pseudomonas aeruginosa"

Please email on amylaurence1989@googlemail.com, Thanks

A much awaited regulatory guidance document! The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has announced new guidance for developing phage therapies in the UK.

The European Research Executive Agency has announced €7.3 billion in EU funding for research through Horizon Europe 2025 to support research careers and competitiveness.

Atif Khan and Hiren Joshi (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, India) published a new research paper on selectively enriching and characterizing stress-tolerant phages for food biocontrol.

Bradley Cook (Cytophage Technologies) and Alexander Hynes (McMaster University) published a new paper on re-evaluating phage therapy criteria. They examine three commonly applied criteria for excluding phages from therapy: the lack of virulence/antibiotic resistance, the inability to transduce, and being strictly lytic. For each, they assess the risk posed, tools for determining the criteria, and the potential impact.

Eleanor Rand (Harvard Medical School) and colleagues published a new paper on a targeted phage discovery method called Phage DisCo, a co-culture-based phage screening technique. Using isogenic, fluorescently tagged bacterial strains, they can rapidly identify phages with specific infection traits, streamlining targeted phage isolation from complex samples.

Hi everyone,

I'm a researcher based in Argentina working on a phage-based biocontrol project targeting spoilage bacteria in industrial fermentations, particularly lactic acid bacteria like Lactobacillus plantarum, L. fermentum, and L. brevis. Despite screening a wide variety of environmental samples, we have not yet observed any plaques on our target strains. We’d be really grateful for any advice or insights regarding common pitfalls when working with phages for Lactobacillus spp.

Thanks in advance for your help, Cecilia.

Reminder to register for the Phage Protein Meeting, taking place in Ghent, Belgium, on September 10-11, 2025. This interdisciplinary conference will bring together experts working with phage lysins/endolysins, tail fibers, tailspikes, depolymerases, and tailocins, fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange for applications in human and veterinary health, food conservation, and beyond.

https://phageproteinmeeting.ugent.be/

• Registration/abstract submission: until June 15, 2025 • Late registration: from June 16, 2025

Daniel Nelson (nelsond@umd.edu) on behalf of the organizing committee

Stephen Tang (Columbia University) and colleagues published a new paper on protein-primed homopolymer synthesis, showing a novel bacterial antiviral defense mechanism involving synthesis of poly-dA DNA triggered by phage infection, driven by a reverse transcriptase that likely uses its own tyrosine residues to prime synthesis.

Meaghan Castledine (University of Exeter) and colleagues published a new paper on interactions between phages and macrophages, showing macrophages reduced phage efficacy and increased bacterial phage resistance, potentially explaining variable phage therapy outcomes in patients.

Liana Merk (Harvard University) and colleagues published a new paper on prevalence of group II introns in phage genomes, showing group II introns are widely present in phages from diverse phylogenetic backgrounds, contrary to previous assumptions.

Nathan Novy (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and colleagues published a new paper on multiobjective learning and design of phage specificity, showing deep learning can enhance T7 phage infectivity and specificity toward diverse bacterial strains.

Tianjing She (Nanjing Agricultural University) and colleagues published a new paper on phage-mediated gene transfer in Salmonella, showing horizontal transfer of virulence genes in Salmonella enterica with regulatory feedback from the host.

The International Antiviral Society-USA (IAS-USA) is hosting a webinar called 'An Introduction to Bacteriophages: Basic Science and Clinical Applications', taking place on June 30, 2025.

This webinar consists of 2 lectures by Graham F. Hatfull, PhD, who will review the basic science of phages, and Robert T. Schooley, MD, who will provide an overview of the clinical applications.

It's designed for clinical decision makers and those new to the topic, and will prove information to those who have some experience in this field and would like a review of these concepts.

Hello phage community! 😃 We’re looking for a T-series E. coli K-12 phage (e.g., T2, T4, T7) engineered to express a red fluorescent protein (e.g., mCherry) fused to a capsid or tail protein — to track intact virions by microscopy. No inducible promoters — we want to see the phage, not just expression! Tracking during infection also welcome.

Got leads or willing to collaborate? Contact me: dany.huelgs@gmail.com

Bio Lab in Korea is currently seeking Paenibacillus relictisesami phages and Lysinibacillus macroides phages. If you have access to these phages and are willing to share them, please get in touch. We would greatly appreciate your support.

• Jenny Park (jennyp@daesang.com)

Another successful phage therapy clinical trial! Armata Pharmaceuticals and colleagues has announced positive topline results from its Phase 1b/2a trial of AP-SA02 for S. aureus bacteremia.

Lukeman Kharrat (San Diego State University) and colleagues published a new paper on phage immunogenicity assessment, showing a novel Bacteriophage Risk Index to predict CpG-mediated immune activation potential of phages and guide selection of therapeutic candidates with optimized immunogenic profiles.

There’s a lot of improvement we can engineer into phages! Phil Huss (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and colleagues published a new paper on engineering phages using metagenomic data, showing how deep mining of metagenomic motifs can be used to engineer novel phages with desired properties.

David Sünderhauf (University of Exeter) and colleagues published a new paper on CRISPR-Cas in plasmid competition, showing CRISPR-Cas benefits plasmids defensively but is limited by competitor toxin-antitoxin systems when horizontally transferred.

Chase Morgan (University of California San Diego), Haley Atkins (Loyola University Chicago) and colleagues published a new review on phage therapy for urinary tract infections, showing phage therapy for this indication is promising, but needs more research on dosing, administration routes, and interactions with the urinary microbiome before clinical use.

You’re invited to submit an abstract to the inaugural Conference on Bacteriophages: Biology, Dynamics, and Therapeutics, chaired by Graham Hatfull (University of Pittsburgh) and Robert (Chip) Schooley (UCSD).

Topics range from phage structure and assembly, evolution, and engineering to clinical trials, susceptibly testing, and host/immune responses.

This is organized by The International Antiviral Society–USA (IAS–USA), and will be held October 12-14, 2025, in Washington, DC.

Registration is open as of April 16, 2025! Check out the preliminary program here.

Submit your late-breaking abstract by Aug 13!

Presenting authors who are new investigators may qualify for a scholarship to cover the cost of registration.

W. Borges (Yale University) and colleagues published a new abstract on personalized phage therapy for cystic fibrosis, showing an LPS-5 and TIVP-H6 phage cocktail decreased P. aeruginosa biofilm formation and reduced IL-6 secretion for 15 days after treatment. They saw deleterious effects on biofilm formation did not persist at day 27, suggesting a clinical window for phage retreatment.

Monyque Karoline de Paula Silva (Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials) and colleagues published a new paper on deep learning in phage discovery, showing how AI enhances phage research through improved vMAG reconstruction, host-interaction prediction, and metagenomic analysis of viral diversity.

Robert Brzozowski, Amelia Schmidt (University of Montana) and colleagues published a new paper on prophage-encoded sRNA limiting lytic phage infection, showing a lambdoid prophage in adherent-invasive E. coli encodes an sRNA that downregulates maltodextrin transport genes, reducing phage adsorption and protecting against lytic infection in vitro and in vivo.

Jyot Antani (Yale University) and colleagues published a new paper on evolutionary responses of E. coli to flagellotropic phage, showing bacteria evolved resistance through flagellar mutations while retaining motility, with some strains exhibiting trade-offs and others trade-ups in swimming ability.

Xiaolin Hou (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and colleagues published a new paper on advances in engineered phages for disease treatment, showing recent progress in enhancing phage targeting, stability, and synergistic combinations, across antibacterial therapy, tumor therapy, and vaccine development.

You’re invited to submit an abstract to the inaugural Conference on Bacteriophages: Biology, Dynamics, and Therapeutics, chaired by Graham Hatfull (University of Pittsburgh) and Robert (Chip) Schooley (UCSD).

Topics range from phage structure and assembly, evolution, and engineering to clinical trials, susceptibly testing, and host/immune responses.

This is organized by The International Antiviral Society–USA (IAS–USA), and will be held October 12-14, 2025, in Washington, DC.

Registration is open as of April 16, 2025! Check out the preliminary program here.

Submit your late-breaking abstract by Aug 13!

Presenting authors who are new investigators may qualify for a scholarship to cover the cost of registration.

Alexander Perfilyev (University of Copenhagen) and colleagues published a new preprint on discovering lytic phages in bacterial genomes, showing over 100,000 complete lytic phage genomes in bacterial assemblies, challenging assumptions and revealing a vast untapped reservoir of potentially therapeutic phages.

Fernando Gordillo Altamirano (Monash University) and colleagues published a new paper on phage therapy failure mechanisms, showing pre-existing anti-prophage antibodies and bacterial heteroresistance contributed to treatment failure in a patient with chronic Bordetella bronchialis infection.

Sarah Macdowell (The Ohio State University) and colleagues published a new paper on meropenem interactions with P. aeruginosa phages. They found that phages PEV2 and ΦKMV reduce bacterial burden in vitro and ex vivo, with enhanced efficacy when combined with meropenem.

Alexandre Boulay (Ghent University) and colleagues published a new paper on segmentation of phage endolysin domains, showing SPAED achieves higher accuracy than existing tools by using AlphaFold's predicted aligned error matrix for hierarchical clustering of protein residues.

Seyoung Ko (Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Korea) and colleagues published a new paper on deep learning-guided structural analysis of phage KPP105. Structural similarity analysis showed how its receptor binding protein facilitates interactions with host receptors and distinguishes between strains.

You’re invited to submit an abstract to the inaugural Conference on Bacteriophages: Biology, Dynamics, and Therapeutics, chaired by Graham Hatfull (University of Pittsburgh) and Robert (Chip) Schooley (UCSD).

Topics range from phage structure and assembly, evolution, and engineering to clinical trials, susceptibly testing, and host/immune responses.

This is organized by The International Antiviral Society–USA (IAS–USA), and will be held October 12-14, 2025, in Washington, DC.

Registration is open as of April 16, 2025! Check out the preliminary program here.

Submit your late-breaking abstract by Aug 13!

Presenting authors who are new investigators may qualify for a scholarship to cover the cost of registration.

In Episode 45 of the International Antiviral Society (IAS-USA)’s Going anti-Viral podcast, Dr. Michael Saag speaks with Dr. Graham F. Hatfull (University of Pittsburgh) about Bacteriophages for the Treatment of Antimicrobial-resistant Bacterial Infections. They explore the promise and complexity of phage therapy against AMR pathogens, from phage diversity and clinical application to the challenges of scaling production and engineering synthetic phages for precision treatment. Don’t miss the inaugural Conference on Bacteriophages: Biology, Dynamics, and Therapeutics, which IAS-USA is hosting in October of this year!

Benjamin Chan (Yale University) and colleagues published a new paper on outcomes from the first 9 adult CF compassionate use cases treated with personalized inhaled P. aeruginosa phage therapy at Yale. 5-18 days after phage therapy, they saw that sputum Pseudomonas decreased by multiple logs without altering sputum microbiome, and saw evidence of trade-offs that decreased Pseudomonas antibiotic resistance and bacterial virulence.

Emily Armbruster (University of California San Diego) and colleagues published a new paper on sequential membrane- and protein-bound organelles in phage infection, showing chimalliviruses use two organelles - an early membrane-bound vesicle and a protein-based nucleus - to compartmentalize their genomes during infection.

Tao Yang (Zhejiang University) and colleagues published a new paper on tumor-homing phage nanofibers for targeted cancer therapy, showing phage-templated platinum nanozymes can enhance photodynamic therapy of breast tumors by alleviating hypoxia.

Hollyn Franklin (Virginia Tech) and colleagues published a new paper on a phage-conditional mouse model, showing acriflavine can deplete gut phages without significantly impacting bacteria, allowing study of phage impacts in conventionally colonized mice.

Nadezhda Kolupaeva (State Research Center for Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, Russia) and colleagues published a new paper on diverse prophage content in A. baumannii and K. pneumoniae bloodstream isolates from patients in the ICU, including phage-derived depolymerases and esterases encoded in the genomes of the isolates.

You’re invited to submit an abstract to the inaugural Conference on Bacteriophages: Biology, Dynamics, and Therapeutics, chaired by Graham Hatfull (University of Pittsburgh) and Robert (Chip) Schooley (UCSD).

Topics range from phage structure and assembly, evolution, and engineering to clinical trials, susceptibly testing, and host/immune responses.

This is organized by The International Antiviral Society–USA (IAS–USA), and will be held October 12-14, 2025, in Washington, DC.

Registration is open as of April 16, 2025! Check out the preliminary program here.

Submit your late-breaking abstract by Aug 13!

Presenting authors who are new investigators may qualify for a scholarship to cover the cost of registration.

Sabrina Green (KU Leuven) wrote a great perspective piece for Nature Microbiology on communicating the promise of phage therapy, her tips on how best to use social media (when memes? when papers?) to get more people to understand its promise and limits, and why she always makes time for science communication. A really nice reminder for us all!

Also — I had no idea about the ‘hidden-locked-door-in-the-lab saga’ that jumpstarted Sabrina’s super successful twitter account!

Lizett Ortiz de Ora (University of California, Irvine) and colleagues published a new paper on visualizing phage transmission dynamics in zebrafish gut microbiomes, showing antibiotics triggered waves of interbacterial phage transmission and sudden shifts in gut community ecology.

Hui Yue (Zhejiang University) and colleagues published a new paper on filamentous phages as tumor-targeting immunotherapeutic agents, showing engineered phages can home to tumors and block PD-1/PD-L1 interaction for targeted cancer immunotherapy without systemic side effects.

Jacopo Marchi (University of Maryland) and colleagues published a new paper on stable coexistence of phages and bacteria, showing how spatial interactions and chemotaxis enable long-term coexistence and dispersal of virulent phages with migrating bacterial hosts.

Jagdev Singh (The Children's Hospital at Westmead) and colleagues published a new paper on safety of bronchoscopic and nebulised phage administration, showing no adverse events and improved lung function in two adolescents with cystic fibrosis receiving phage therapy for Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection.

Phagos and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are hosting a hackathon called Phagos x AWS — Hackdays 2025, taking place on May 14-15th, 2025. The event aims to leverage AI and LLMs for phage genome analysis, addressing antibiotic resistance and infectious diseases in animal farming. Participants can join on-site in Paris or remotely.

Jerry Nick (National Jewish Health) and colleagues published a new paper on trial design for phage therapy against M. abscessus in cystic fibrosis, showing a standardized protocol to assess efficacy and safety of phage treatment in refractory infections.

Jeremy Barr (Monash University) published a new perspective on T-series phages as reductionist models, discussing how these phages have shaped the field of microbiology and continue to be important research tools.

Amalie Høgh Eichler (University of Copenhagen) and colleagues published a new paper on PQS stability in phage lysates, showing PQS is highly stable in phage lysates for up to a year and can induce quorum sensing responses when carried over, potentially confounding phage-host interaction studies.

The Online Citizen wrote a piece on Singapore General Hospital's successful use of phage therapy to treat a patient using phages, which allowed the patient to avoid high-risk surgery.

Has anybody got borrelial phage φBB-1? We'd also need a recommendation for correct concentration, dosage and administration. Thank you all! — Barbara Brenner

Qeen Biotechnologies (in partnership with Cellexus, CPI, University of Exeter, NRC Canada, and Unity Health Toronto) was awarded a $2M CAD grant through the Canada–UK: Biomanufacturing of Biologics and Advanced Therapies program to develop a scalable GMP manufacturing platform for phage therapies.

Michael Shamash (McGill University) and colleagues published a new preprint on improving gut virome comparisons, showing that incorporating predicted phage host information enhances the analysis and comparison of gut viromes across different studies.

Amandine Maurin (University of Montpellier) and colleagues published a new paper on convergent evolution in a Salmonella phage, showing expanded host range and increased virulence evolved through parallel mutations, particularly in genes for nucleases, dUTPase, and caudal proteins.

Giuseppina Mariano, Justin Deme (University of Glasgow & National Cancer Institute) and colleagues published a new paper on structural and mechanistic insights into Zorya phage defense systems, showing ZorAB forms an ion-driven motor complex that recruits nuclease effectors to damage host DNA and provide population-wide immunity against phages.

Nanami Kubota (University of Pittsburgh) and colleagues published a new preprint on filamentous phage exploitation of bacteria, showing that mutant Pf phages can drive P. aeruginosa populations to lower fitness through superinfection and miniphage invasion.

Dear Phage Protein enthusiast,

We are pleased to invite you to The Phage Protein Meeting, September 10-11, 2025 in Ghent, Belgium.

The Phage Protein Meeting is an interdisciplinary conference organized by academics and dedicated to advancing the field of phage proteins for biocontrol. This event will bring together academic researchers and professionals who are actively working with phage proteins such as phage lysins, tail fibers, tailspikes, depolymerases, and tailocins.

Sincerely, Daniel Nelson on behalf of the Organizing Committee

Huge milestone alert! BiomX has announced successful Phase II clinical trial results for their BX211 phage product against diabetic foot osteomyelitis!

Subscribe to the Podovirus podcast to learn more — we'll be interviewing BiomX CEO Jonathan Solomon later this month!

Marian Dominguez-Mirazo (Georgia Institute of Technology) and colleagues published a new preprint on inferring phage trait heterogeneity from population data, showing latent period variation in cyanophages exceeds that of coliphages and burst size variability is largely explained by latent period variation.

Jason Wilson (University of Sheffield) and colleagues published a new paper on structural analysis of a phage that penetrates bacterial S-layers, showing the phage has an unusually long tail that contracts less than other phages, likely enabling S-layer penetration without enzymatic activity.

Isabella Romano (University of New Mexico) and colleagues published a new paper on RNA phage-derived vaccines against heroin and fentanyl, showing the vaccines elicit high-titer antibodies and protect against opioid-induced effects in mice after two doses.

José Penadés (Imperial College London) and colleagues published a new review on phage satellite genetics, ecology and evolution, diving into how these elements impact bacterial evolution and virulence.

Dear Phage Protein enthusiast,

We are pleased to invite you to The Phage Protein Meeting, September 10-11, 2025 in Ghent, Belgium.

The Phage Protein Meeting is an interdisciplinary conference organized by academics and dedicated to advancing the field of phage proteins for biocontrol. This event will bring together academic researchers and professionals who are actively working with phage proteins such as phage lysins, tail fibers, tailspikes, depolymerases, and tailocins.

Sincerely, Daniel Nelson on behalf of the Organizing Committee

Li Yuping (University of California, San Francisco) and colleagues published a new paper on a bacterial immune system targeting jumbo phages, showing it disrupts an early phage infection compartment to block replication.

Brittany Supina (University of Alberta) and colleagues published a new paper on isolation and characterization of a novel Burkholderia jumbo phage, showing it uses flagella as a receptor, controls rice seedling rot, and steers B. glumae toward reduced virulence in rice seedlings.

Himanshu Batra (Catholic University of America) and colleagues published a new preprint on targeted phage T4-based nanoparticles, showing these nanoparticles can reactivate latent HIV-1 in CD4+ T cells without causing global T cell activation or cytokine storm.

Tamsin Redgwell (Copenhagen University Hospital) and colleagues published a new paper on prophage induction in infant gut microbiomes, showing most prophages were actively induced and may modulate host bacterial functionality through accessory genes.

Arne Echterhof (Stanford University School of Medicine) and colleagues published a new preprint on modeling whole-body phage distribution in mice, using Physiologically-based Pharmacokinetic Modeling. They show rapid elimination of phage and the need for multi-dose regimens to maintain detectable phage concentrations.

The Rao lab at Stanford is seeking Mycobacterium phages for testing the new point-of-care phage-based diagnostic device they are developing. If anyone has any to share, or wants to collaborate, please reach out to Dr. Jianghong Rao!

Yves Briers (Ghent University, Belgium) and colleagues are hosting The Phage Protein Meeting September 10-11, 2025.

The event is for researchers working with phage proteins such as phage lysins, tail fibers, tailspikes, depolymerases, and tailocins, who want to develop these proteins for controlling bacterial infections, from diagnostic to therapeutic applications across human and veterinary health, food conservation, and other applications for biocontrol.

The Belgian Society for Viruses of Microbes (BSVoM) is hosting their 4th Annual Symposium on Phage Research, taking place on September 12, 2025 (the day after the Phage Protein Meeting, in the same city!).

Particularly, there will be also a session on clinical phage therapy under the Belgian magistral phage legislation. Ghent has a beautiful historic city centre for sightseeing and touristic hotspots like Bruges, Antwerp and Brussels are located within a 30 min train trip. As such all phage lovers can have a phantastic trip to Belgium full of phage updates and sightseeing!

The Rao lab at Stanford is seeking Mycobacterium phages for testing the new point-of-care phage-based diagnostic device they are developing. If anyone has any to share, or wants to collaborate, please reach out to Dr. Jianghong Rao!

Atif Khan published a new blog post on the Phage Collection Project blog about phage-based biofouling control in power plants. He explains how phages can eliminate biofilms that encourage barnacle larvae settlement, offering a sustainable alternative to chlorine-based treatments.

Kate Harding (University of Otago) and colleagues published a new paper on genome-wide identification of bacterial genes for nucleus-forming phage infection, showing flagella and lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis genes are major contributors to phage resistance, alongside other cellular pathways also used by non-jumbo phages.

Amit Rimon (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and colleagues published a new paper on comparing methods for assessing phage activity against biofilms, showing several promising techniques including calorimetry, extracellular ATP measurement, and modified CFU assays for evaluating phage efficacy in biofilm infections.

Sisi Lin (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) and colleagues published a new paper on coating phage-infected bacteria with polymers, showing this preserves phage vitality and improves therapeutic outcomes in mouse models of bacterial infection compared to uncoated phages.

Su Jin Jo (Seoul National University) and colleagues published a paper on a new model they've developed for standardizing and optimizing an agar plate-based method for phage production based on plaque size and inoculum concentration.

Hanzada Nour El-Din (National Research Council Canada) and colleagues published a new paper on isolation and characterization of phages against Pseudomonas aeruginosa from cystic fibrosis patients, showing four phages with broad host range and potential for phage therapy against early and chronic P. aeruginosa infections.

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.

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.

Maciej Żaczek (Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy) and colleagues published a new paper on Polish perceptions of phage therapy, showing awareness of phage therapy varies significantly by education level, with 84.4% of respondents willing to try phage treatment despite limited knowledge about phages.

Tanita Wein (Weizmann Institute of Science) and colleagues published a new paper on bacterial CARD domains in anti-phage defense, showing that CARD domains are essential for protease-mediated activation of bacterial gasdermins that trigger cell death upon phage infection, suggesting an ancient immune mechanism conserved from bacteria to humans.

Siti Adil (La Trobe University) and colleagues published a new phage purification methods comparison paper, showing Triton X-100 was most effective for endotoxin removal and phage recovery compared to CsCl ultracentrifugation and endotoxin removal resin columns.

I'm a chronic prostatitis patient who has tried Georgian & Russian phages before. While they did help, there was no lasting effect. I studied microbiology and so have faith in phages. I'd be looking for a place that could treat me, including by intra-prostatic injections/other delivery methods.

Main culprits: E. faecalis and K. pneumoniae, both pretty resistant but still susceptible to some antibiotics - all but gentamicin have been tried, including rare or last resort antibiotics and combinations, such as linezolid or thiamphenicol, etc.

https://chronicprostatitis.blogspot.com/p/feedback.html

I'm a chronic prostatitis patient who has tried Georgian & Russian phages before. While they did help, there was no lasting effect. I studied microbiology and so have faith in phages. I'd be looking for a place that could treat me, including by intra-prostatic injections/other delivery methods.

Main culprits: E. faecalis and K. pneumoniae, both pretty resistant but still susceptible to some antibiotics - all but gentamicin have been tried, including rare or last resort antibiotics and combinations, such as linezolid or thiamphenicol, etc.

https://chronicprostatitis.blogspot.com/p/feedback.html

I'm a chronic prostatitis patient who has tried Georgian & Russian phages before. While they did help, there was no lasting effect. I studied microbiology and so have faith in phages. I'd be looking for a place that could treat me, including by intra-prostatic injections/other delivery methods.

Main culprits: E. faecalis and K. pneumoniae, both pretty resistant but still susceptible to some antibiotics - all but gentamicin have been tried, including rare or last resort antibiotics and combinations, such as linezolid or thiamphenicol, etc.

https://chronicprostatitis.blogspot.com/p/feedback.html

After an announcement last month that Canada would close its phage therapy research program at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg, Michael Parcey and colleagues have announced a ‘stunning reversal’: a set of unexpected, last-minute contract extensions have come through, meaning the team will continue their phage therapy work. Hooray!

I'm a chronic prostatitis patient who has tried Georgian & Russian phages before. While they did help, there was no lasting effect. I studied microbiology and so have faith in phages. I'd be looking for a place that could treat me, including by intra-prostatic injections/other delivery methods.

Main culprits: E. faecalis and K. pneumoniae, both pretty resistant but still susceptible to some antibiotics - all but gentamicin have been tried, including rare or last resort antibiotics and combinations, such as linezolid or thiamphenicol, etc.

https://chronicprostatitis.blogspot.com/p/feedback.html

Evergreen 2025 is happening, and for the first time in its 50-year history, we're taking it on the road!

Register now for the 26th Biennial Evergreen International Phage Meeting, which will be held August 3-8, 2025, at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville!

Hosted by the Phagebiotics Research Foundation, the Denes Lab, and UTK colleagues, this event aims to bring the magic of Evergreen to a new location.

Follow @Evergreen_Phage on X for updates, or stay tuned here — Jan and Jess are excited to help out again this year!

Phage cocktail or personalized therapy — an age-old binary, or a spectrum after all? Minyoung Kevin Kim (Stanford University) and colleagues from Mayo Clinic, QAMH, & KU Leuven published a review on how phage therapy is currently being implemented. They explore the rise of 'phage therapy centers' and the spectrum of treatment approaches being taken, extracting what's common to most & highlighting decision points at each step. Paper | Jessica's X thread about the paper

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.

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.

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.

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

Newbie with questions on phages: I am an absolute newbie to phages, but, I figured here would be a good place to ask. Anyone know of any phages capable of targeting Candidatus Liberibacter Asiaticus? Anyone do any research with phages on this?

Email: Cole@floridacitrusthreat.org or I respond quicker to: Arrantcole@gmail.com

Thank you so very much! Cole

The First Symposium of the Danish Viruses of Microbes Network will be hosted June 11-13, 2025 in Copenhagen. The meeting will showcase recent phage research and foster collaboration among Nordic scientists.

The International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) is hosting a conference, taking place on June 26-28, 2023 in Denver, Colorado, USA. The event aims to address scientific developments and challenges in probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, postbiotics, and fermented foods through diverse engagement formats.

The European Bone and Joint Infection Society (EBJIS) is hosting a conference called EBJIS 2025: Advancing Bone & Joint Infection Management, taking place Sept 11-13, 2025 in Bologna, Italy.

The European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST) will host a Phage Susceptibility Testing Symposium March 12 2025.

Garyk Brixi (Arc Institute and Stanford University) and colleagues have expanded on Evo 1, which was trained on prokaryotic and phage genomes, to create Evo 2, now the largest AI model in biology. It was trained on 9.3 trillion nucleotides from 128,000 genomes across all domains of life (spanning bacteria, archaea, phages, humans, plants, and other single-celled and multi-cellular species). It identifies genetic patterns, predicts mutation effects, and designs genome-scale sequences. Evo 2 is fully open-source — play with it here!

Benjamin Adler (University of California, Berkeley) and colleagues published CRISPRi-ART for phage functional genomics, a new broad-spectrum phage functional genomics platform. It leverages RNA-targeting dCas13d to selectively interfere with protein translation, allowing measurement of phage gene fitness at a transcriptome-wide scale. It works for all kinds of phages, and has already identified more than 90 previously unknown genes important for phage fitness!

Melissa Cammuso (The Ottawa Hospital) and colleagues have published a preprint in medRxiv on the first use of phage therapy in Canada for life-threatening, MDR Staphylococcus epidermidis periprosthetic joint infection. This ‘n of 1 trial’ describes how the phage was administered intra-articularly and intravenously, leading to sustained clinical improvement.

Los Angeles Biotech startup Parallel Health has announced an expanded protocol for personalized skin treatments using microbiome science and phage therapy. Their approach combines microbiome testing, custom phage serums, telehealth, and prescriptions to address various skin conditions.

Maria Touceda-Suarez (University of Arizona) and colleagues compiled a report on last year’s successful International Soil Virus Conference 2024, showing key developments in soil viral ecology and recommendations for future research in this rapidly advancing field. Also, participation at this meeting doubled since 2022, with 38% early-career researchers attending from 10 countries!

From Lars Hestbjerg Hansen via LinkedIn: Hi all. I'm looking for E. coli isolates. Hundreds of them! Even thousands! Preferably, non-clinical isolates. Please contact me if you have a large DIVERSE collection or if you know someone who has. PS. I have the ECOR collection already :)

Ruby Lin and colleagues have created an innovative virtual reality education platform for phage therapy patients. The VR experience guides patients through the entire phage therapy journey, from lab testing to bedside treatment, aiming to reduce anxiety and increase understanding. You can view the 2D version here!

José R Penadés (Imperial College London) and colleagues have shown that a new AI tool, ‘AI co-scientist’ (built by Google), was able to accurately predict their (unpublished) experimental findings about how phage-inducible chromosomal islands spread across bacterial species. Check out this blog post for more on the AI co-scientist!

Proteon Pharmaceuticals has announced the registration of its Salmonella phage-based chicken feed product, BAFASAL PRO, in Brazil! This is Proteon’s third product approval in Brazil, and second in the last year!

The Novo Nordisk Foundation, Wellcome, and Gates Foundation have released a call for proposals on innovative approaches to discover broad-spectrum antibiotics against Gram-negative pathogens, focusing on Klebsiella spp. Apply by March 25, 2025. For info, watch the webinar Feb 27, 6-7am Pacific Time.

Mikael Skurnik (University of Helsinki) and colleagues published a new in-depth review on phage therapy methods, showing comprehensive protocols for isolating, characterizing, and applying phages in therapeutic settings against bacterial infections.

Cheng Lu (South China University of Technology) and colleagues published a new paper on synthesizing headful packaging phages, showing functional phages can be synthesized using yeast transformation-associated recombination with only a unit-length genome plus a 60 bp terminal redundant sequence.

Eugen Pfeifer (Université Paris-Saclay) and colleagues published a new paper on the impact of cephalosporin antibiotics on gut phages, showing cephalosporins induce phage bursts, mostly of virulent phages, which may help restore microbial diversity after antibiotic perturbation.

Brittany Supina (University of Alberta) and colleagues published a new paper on flagella-dependent jumbo phage controlling rice seedling rot, showing a phage that reduces Burkholderia glumae virulence in rice seedlings and depends on bacterial flagella for infection.

Alexa Fitzpatrick (University of Toronto) and colleagues published a new paper on phage reprogramming of bacterial metabolism, showing two phage proteins increase amino acid and putrescine levels in Pseudomonas aeruginosa to promote efficient phage replication by altering host gene expression.

Sada Raza (Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences) and colleagues published a new paper on indigo carmine as an antiphage agent, showing it selectively inactivates DNA phages by binding to their genome and causing capsid deformation, while protecting bacterial cultures.

Unfortunately, funding for the Canadian National Microbiology Lab's Phage Science, Therapeutics, and Research (PhageSTAR) program is ending.

Sandra Morales and Paul Hyman have published a new perspective called "Quis Custodiet? Are Regulations Slowing Phage Therapy?".  In it, they discuss current regulations, recent efficacy trials and support resources in the context of regulatory approval of phage therapy for widespread use.

Josephine Davey-Young (University of Toronto) and colleagues published a new article entitled 'Phage therapy to treat unresponsive infections: A primer for the clinical microbiology laboratory staff'. They describe the need for specific laboratory practices and standardized susceptibility testing methods for phage therapy implementation.

Kat Pick (University of Alberta) and colleagues published a new paper on a novel phage-inducible chromosomal island in E. coli, showing it aids helper phage replication and represses a pathogenicity island.

Landon Getz (University of Toronto) and colleagues published a new paper on integrons as anti-phage defence libraries, showing integrons in Vibrio parahaemolyticus contain diverse anti-phage defence systems, including 9 previously unrecognized ones, regulated by quorum sensing.

Julia Kelliher (Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico) and colleagues published the outcomes of a recent microbiome data management workshop focused on standardizing reporting guidelines for environmental and host-associated microbiome studies (STREAMS).

Join the consortium if you’d like to help shape these guidelines!

Seeking Themus thermophilus HB27 bacteriophages.

Dear colleagues, I would greatly appreciate sharing T. thermophilus bacteriophages for my research of thermophilic bacteria anti-phage defence or any advice where I can find them.

Please contact me by email prostova@caltech.edu Thank you in advance!

Best regards, Maria Prostova

The University of California San Francisco is hosting a symposium called Annual Bay Area Microbial Pathogenesis Symposium (BAMPS).

The event takes place Saturday, March 22, and aims to bring together researchers interested in microbial pathogenesis and microbes in health and disease. It features short talks, poster sessions, and a keynote by Dr. Nels Elde from the University of Utah.

The International Antiviral Society-USA (IAS-USA) is hosting a conference called Conference on Bacteriophages: Biology, Dynamics, and Therapeutics, taking place October 12-14 2025 in Washington, DC.

This inaugural 2.5-day event aims to bring together 500 US and international researchers to discuss recent advances in phage biology and potential clinical applications.

Featured speakers include Martha Clokie and Philip Kranzusch; conference chairs are Graham Hatfull and Robert (Chip) Schooley, with an extremely exciting roster of key phage scientists and clinicians making up the scientific program committee!

2026 meeting alert! (Yes, 2026 — these get planned early!)

The Beyond Antibiotics: Emerging Strategies for Combating Bacterial Infection Keystone Symposium will take place on May 4–7, 2026 in Breckenridge, Colorado.

The event aims to explore innovative approaches to fight bacterial infections beyond traditional antibiotics. The scientific organizers are Joseph P. Zackular, Kimberly Kline, Daria Van Tyne and Mariana X. Byndloss.

Seeking Themus thermophilus HB27 bacteriophages.

Dear colleagues, I would greatly appreciate sharing T. thermophilus bacteriophages for my research of thermophilic bacteria anti-phage defence or any advice where I can find them.

Please contact me by email prostova@caltech.edu Thank you in advance!

Best regards, Maria Prostova

Stanford undergraduate student Aaryan Harshith published a new blog post on his adventures in the Bollyky lab this past year, which led to his independent quest to discover three novel phages in his first year at the bench!

This is a fantastic read describing some of the trials and tribulations (and joys!) of lab work, that many of us can probably relate to.

(Also Aaryan is awesome; one of Jess’ favourite students — you might consider subscribing to his blog to follow all the other cool things he’s doing, like building phage TEM image databases, and more!)

The University of California San Francisco is hosting a symposium called Annual Bay Area Microbial Pathogenesis Symposium (BAMPS).

The event takes place Saturday, March 22, and aims to bring together researchers interested in microbial pathogenesis and microbes in health and disease. It features short talks, poster sessions, and a keynote by Dr. Nels Elde from the University of Utah.

The International Antiviral Society-USA (IAS-USA) is hosting a conference called Conference on Bacteriophages: Biology, Dynamics, and Therapeutics, taking place October 12-14 2025 in Washington, DC.

This inaugural 2.5-day event aims to bring together 500 US and international researchers to discuss recent advances in phage biology and potential clinical applications.

Featured speakers include Martha Clokie and Philip Kranzusch; conference chairs are Graham Hatfull and Robert (Chip) Schooley, with an extremely exciting roster of key phage scientists and clinicians making up the scientific program committee!

2026 meeting alert! (Yes, 2026 — these get planned early!)

The Beyond Antibiotics: Emerging Strategies for Combating Bacterial Infection Keystone Symposium will take place on May 4–7, 2026 in Breckenridge, Colorado.

The event aims to explore innovative approaches to fight bacterial infections beyond traditional antibiotics. The scientific organizers are Joseph P. Zackular, Kimberly Kline, Daria Van Tyne and Mariana X. Byndloss.

Carolyn Teschke (University of Connecticut), Chuan (River) Xiao (University of Texas at El Paso), and Reza Khayat (City College of New York) are hosting the XXIX Biennial Conference on Phage/Virus Assembly.

The event will take place June 15-20, 2025 at Cape Cod Irish Village in Hyannis, MA, and aims to promote research on virus assembly through open dialogue between researchers from around the world.

The Canadian Society of Microbiologists (CSM) is hosting its 74th Annual Conference.

CSM will take place June 17-20, 2025 at Université de Montréal, the largest francophone university of Canada. The theme for this year’s meeting is “Microbiology for society”; to emphasize how Microbiology has and continue to shape the humanity since millenaries in the different field of life.

The 1st International Symposium on Advances in Phage Therapeutics will take place on June 16-17, 2025, in Braga, Portugal.

Organized by experts behind the Viruses of Microbes 2022 Conference, this symposium will focus on the latest developments in phage therapy, covering topics such as personalized treatments, pharmacokinetics, and applications for chronic infections. Researchers, healthcare professionals, and industry experts are invited to join discussions on the future of phage-based therapeutics.

Stephen Theriault, CEO of Cytophage, gave a TED Talk on Harnessing Phages to Combat Superbugs, exploring how phages can address antibiotic resistance. A scientist, entrepreneur, and former member of Canada’s Ebola vaccine team, he shares his team’s work developing engineered phages to fight bacterial infections, improve food security, and protect the environment.

Sabrina Green via X: If anyone has Endotrap kits and wants to share let us know. This is for patient cases.

How long until governments can subscribe to antimicrobials (instead of paying per use), so it will finally be economically viable to develop them? Italy is now the second country (after the UK) to create a path for this! Damiano de Felice and John Rex break down Italy’s new ‘antibiotic pull incentive’, which will devote €100 million annually for innovative antimicrobials.

NIAID has two grants open that fit could fit your phage research!

1. the 2026 Omnibus Broad Agency Announcement supports work on infectious diseases, including AMR and countermeasures;

2. the CARBIRUs (Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Interdisciplinary Research Units) program funds interdisciplinary teams tackling AMR.

Are you my host? Paul Hyman (Ashland University) published a new paper on methods for linking phages with hosts, showing growth-based, genome sequence-based, and proximity-based approaches each measure different aspects of phage-host interactions and have distinct advantages and limitations.

Owen Tuck (University of California, Berkeley) and colleagues published a new paper on Hachiman antiphage defense complex, showing Hachiman is a nuclease-helicase complex that senses genome integrity and degrades DNA upon detecting damage, inhibiting phage replication.

Susu Jiang, Chau Chen (Shenzhen University Medical School) and colleagues published a new paper on how a phage-encoded kinase phosphorylates multiple host defense systems including DndFGH and CRISPR-Cas to enable infection.

Jimmy Mayer has donated £4 million to rename and expand the University of Leicester's Centre for Phage Research, now called The Becky Mayer Centre for Phage Research.

Daniela Rothschild-Rodriguez (University of Southampton) and colleagues published a new paper on a community-driven Klebsiella phage resource, showing KlebPhaCol comprises 53 phages spanning 5 families, including a novel gut-associated order, targeting diverse Klebsiella strains.

Tongqing Wei (Fudan University) and colleagues published a new paper on predicting phage-bacteria interactions using deep learning, showing DeepPBI-KG can accurately predict interactions based on key genes and outperforms existing methods on multiple datasets.

Yuxing Wu (Guangxi University) and colleagues published a new paper on oral bacteriophage therapy for C. perfringens infections in piglets, showing phage vB_CpeP_15N3 could effectively prevent and treat C. perfringens type C infections in newborn piglets when administered orally.

Marzanna Lusiak-Szelachowska (Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy) and colleagues published a new paper on antiphage antibodies in phage therapy patients, showing antibodies appear late in treatment, particularly with local or combined local/oral administration, without preventing positive outcomes.

Phages for Global Health is featured in "The Good Virus," an upcoming documentary that highlights how PGH workshops have catalyzed phage research across Africa, where scientists are now successfully treating AMR infections and building local capacity for phage research.

Through inspiring stories from Uganda to Kenya, the film shows how international collaboration is transforming the fight against bacterial infections!

Watch the trailer!

Greg German and colleagues have announced PhageRounds, a global network for phage clinicians and scientists with over 350 members. The group hosts confidential grand rounds and fosters collaboration to advance phage therapy against deadly bacterial infections.

Prof. Martin Loessner and Prof. Alexander Harms have announced a thematic issue on Viruses of Microbes in microLife journal. The issue highlights recent discoveries and applications in bacteriophage research, linked to the Viruses of Microbes conference.

Phages for Global Health is featured in "The Good Virus," an upcoming documentary that highlights how PGH workshops have catalyzed phage research across Africa, where scientists are now successfully treating AMR infections and building local capacity for phage research.

Through inspiring stories from Uganda to Kenya, the film shows how international collaboration is transforming the fight against bacterial infections!

Watch the trailer!

Greg German and colleagues have announced PhageRounds, a global network for phage clinicians and scientists with over 350 members. The group hosts confidential grand rounds and fosters collaboration to advance phage therapy against deadly bacterial infections.

Prof. Martin Loessner and Prof. Alexander Harms have announced a thematic issue on Viruses of Microbes in microLife journal. The issue highlights recent discoveries and applications in bacteriophage research, linked to the Viruses of Microbes conference.

Minyoung Kevin Kim (Stanford University) and colleagues published a new paper on designing effective phage-antibiotic cocktails against bacterial infections, showing that combining phages from different "complementarity groups" targeting different bacterial receptors can prevent resistance and effectively treat multidrug-resistant infections.

Saar Van Overfelt (Ghent University, Belgium) and colleagues published a new paper on quantifying bacteriophages using qPCR and double agar overlay (DAO) methods, showing DNase treatment reduces discrepancies between qPCR and DAO quantification by removing free phage DNA in stocks.

Mahshid Khazani Asforooshan (Alzahra University, Iran) and colleagues have isolated and characterized a novel phage targeting Enterococcus faecium from hospital sewage. They designed a hydrogel-based drug delivery carrier, and showed the phage+hydrogel combination promoted wound healing in mice.

Yangjing Xiong (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) and colleagues published a new paper on phage therapy for ETEC-induced diarrhea, showing phage JE01 reduced ETEC colonization and inflammation in mice, with fluorescent imaging revealing rapid intestinal targeting of the phage.

Hany Ahmed (Tanta University, Egypt) and colleagues published a new paper on isolation and characterization of a lytic phage against carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii (CRAB), showing the phage was effective in treating CRAB lung infections in mice and demonstrated safety in lung tissues.

Cheng Peng (City University of Hong Kong) and colleagues published a new paper on a genome foundation model for virus discovery, showing ViraLM outperforms existing tools in identifying novel viral contigs in metagenomic data, especially improving F1-score on short contigs by 22%.

Rachel Seongeun Kim (Seoul National University) and colleagues published a new paper on a large repository of predicted viral protein structures, showing BFVD contains 351,242 structures covering major viral clades and offering unique opportunities to explore viral diversity.

Arturo Carabias (University of Copenhagen) and colleagues published a new paper on phage-encoded NAD restoration pathways, showing how phages counter bacterial immunity through innovative strategies to replenish NAD, providing insights for novel antimicrobial approaches.

The Innovate UK Phage Innovation Network published a new report on developing phage technologies in the UK, showing the UK has strong phage research but limited translation into real-world solutions across sectors. Key actions include establishing GMP manufacturing capability and formulating a national strategy.

Lorenz Leitner and Shawna McCallin (Balgrist University Hospital) published a new paper on guiding phage therapy with genomic surveillance, showing how integrating global and local genomic data can inform phage cocktail design for a middle ground between personalized and product-based approaches.

The International Society for Viruses of Microbes has elected its new board! (Of 1401 members, 32% voted!)   • President-Elect: Rob Edwards, Flinders University, Australia • Vice-President: Hany Anany, Agriculture and AgriFood Canada, Canada • Membership Officer: Cedric Lood, University of Oxford, Great Britain • Treasurer: Tracy Peters, University of Idaho, USA • Information Officer: Luis Melo, University of Minho, Portugal • Website administrator: Hugo Olivera, University of Minho, Portugal • Assistant Secretary: Katja Suster, Valdoltra Orthopaedic Hospital, Slovenia • Industry Outreach: Sandra Morales, Phage Consulting Pty Ltd., Australia   Congratulations to all the elected members! The new Executive Board will start working for ISVM from January 1st, 2025, including Lone Brøndsted as President and Zuzanna Drulis-Kawa as member-at-large.

New North American phage biology and therapy conference alert!

Save the date: Sunday, October 12 to Tuesday, October 14, 2025 at the Washington Hilton Hotel, in Washington, DC. 

Organizers: Graham Hatfull, Chip Schooley, Paul Bollyky and colleagues.

More info coming soon!

New North American phage biology and therapy conference alert!

Save the date: Sunday, October 12 to Tuesday, October 14, 2025 at the Washington Hilton Hotel, in Washington, DC. 

Organizers: Graham Hatfull, Chip Schooley, Paul Bollyky and colleagues.

More info coming soon!

The International Society for Viruses of Microbes has elected its new board! (Of 1401 members, 32% voted!)   • President-Elect: Rob Edwards, Flinders University, Australia • Vice-President: Hany Anany, Agriculture and AgriFood Canada, Canada • Membership Officer: Cedric Lood, University of Oxford, Great Britain • Treasurer: Tracy Peters, University of Idaho, USA • Information Officer: Luis Melo, University of Minho, Portugal • Website administrator: Hugo Olivera, University of Minho, Portugal • Assistant Secretary: Katja Suster, Valdoltra Orthopaedic Hospital, Slovenia • Industry Outreach: Sandra Morales, Phage Consulting Pty Ltd., Australia   Congratulations to all the elected members! The new Executive Board will start working for ISVM from January 1st, 2025, including Lone Brøndsted as President and Zuzanna Drulis-Kawa as member-at-large.

A historic day for Portugal and phage therapy! A phage therapy framework was approved, allowing magistral preparation of personalized phage products. This was done in part by a petition (inspired by the Belgian phage therapy model) signed by Portuguese patients and doctors, as well as Jean-Paul Pirnay and Joana Azeredo’s groups. Congratulations Portugal!

Bhavya Papudeshi (Flinders University) and colleagues published a new preprint on an automated bioinformatics pipeline for phage therapy candidate screening, showing Sphae can rapidly assess phage safety and suitability for therapeutic use in under 10 minutes.

Make the right ones glow! Eleanor Rand (Harvard Medical School) and colleagues developed a new targeted Phage Discovery method based on using multiple fluorescent markers, allowing for co-culture with multiple hosts and visualization of phages that interact with some and not others — no more selecting only for dominant phages in your samples! See also Ellie’s explainer thread.

Phages in sponges! A new study by Leon Steiner (GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Kiel) and colleagues shows single-phage disturbances in the microbiome of marine sponges can disrupt microbial balance, enabling opportunistic bacteria like Vibrio to thrive, shedding light on phage roles in microbiome dynamics and resilience.

Atif Khan (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre) and colleagues published a new paper showing chlorine-tolerant phages can inhibit growth and biofilm formation of chlorine-resistant K. pneumoniae isolated from a cooling water system.

Eric Nguyen (Stanford University, Arc Institute) and colleagues published a paper on their new machine learning model, Evo, a new generative AI model trained on millions of phage and bacterial genomes for designing new biological sequences from scratch. They show that Evo can design new functional CRISPRs and transposons, and generate plausible-looking phage genomes based on large phage gene essentiality datasets! Next up — generating phages that actually infect.

Baptiste Gaborieau (Université Paris Cité, France) and colleagues created a new machine learning model able to predict Escherichia phage-host interactions and design effective phage cocktails using only genomic data.

Ryan Cook and Andrew Millard have announced updates to their INPHARED phage genome database, showing a significant increase in Microviridae genomes (from what looks like one new study).

Léa Ibarlosa (CNRS-Université de Bordeaux, France) and colleagues published a new paper on amyloid signaling in antiphage defense, showing that amyloid proteins Bab and Agp form a novel E. coli antiphage system activating cell death upon infection.

Joaquín Martínez Martínez (Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, Maine) and colleagues published a new paper on viral carbon and nitrogen assimilation by microbes, showing protists and bacteria can obtain significant carbon and nitrogen from viruses, representing an important flux in marine biogeochemical cycles.

Phages for Global Health's president, Dr Tobi Nagel, is working in Malaysia for 2 months as part of her Fulbright project on phage therapy regulation systems.

Excitingly, the Malaysia Phage Network (MPN) has just launched! The first meeting of MPN took place this week, organized in partnership with Tobi’s Fulbright hosts in Malaysia, Drs Heera Rajandas and Siva Parimannan from the Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology.

Read more about the first segment of Tobi’s Fulbright project, when she spent 2 months working in Kenya.

For the final segment of that project, she will work in Uganda during March - April 2025, hosted by Dr. Jesca Nakavuma at Makerere University.

Maryn McKenna and Lina Zeldovich held a live Q&A about phage therapy at Emory University. Zeldovich, a Soviet-born scientist-turned-author, discusses her new book "The Living Medicine," which explores the revival of phage therapy as a potential solution to antibiotic resistance. The event is part of Emory's Health Storytelling Author Q&A series.

Chao Liu (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and colleagues published a new paper on phage CRISPR-like regulatory RNAs silencing bacterial immunity, showing how phages use crlRNA mimics to hijack host CRISPR-Cas and abortive infection defenses in P. aeruginosa.

Talia Backman (University of Utah) and colleagues published a new paper on tradeoffs and constraints in tailocin evolution, showing tailocins exhibit extreme target specificity, evolve rapidly, and face tradeoffs between resistance and host colonization.

Anthony King wrote a piece for Nature Outlook on bacteria-killing viruses in the gut microbiome, showing that phages are key players in gut ecology but remain difficult to study due to their abundance and diversity.

Susu Jiang (Shenzhen University Medical School, China) and colleagues published a new paper on phage-encoded kinase evading bacterial defenses, showing the JSS1_004 protein phosphorylates multiple bacterial defense systems to enable phage infection.

Marwan Mahmood Saleh (University of Anbar, Iraq) and colleagues evaluated the lytic efficiency of a three-phage cocktail against multidrug-resistant P. aeruginosa isolates in vitro. The cocktail showed broad activity, including against XDR and PDR strains.

Phages.fr is hosting the 9th French Phage Network Meeting, taking place next week in Sète, France. This annual conference aims to bring together French phage researchers to share recent findings, discuss collaborations, and advance the field of phage biology and applications.

New social network alert! A bunch of phage people are now on Bluesky!

Atif Khan, Jyot Antani, James Gurney, and Richard Allen White III have curated and shared phage-related ‘Starter Packs’ to help newcomers find the phage community on the platform:

• Global Bacteriophage-ologist
• Virome, Phage, and Viruses
• Bacteriophage Science
• Also, check out the hashtag #phagesky

Once you’ve created your account, click to follow everyone on each of these starter packs, and message the creators to request being added to the lists!

Frontiers is hosting a virtual seminar called Visualizing the microbiome: data-driven discoveries on January 18, 2024.

Rob Knight from the UC San Diego will discuss key findings from microbiome research projects, innovative data visualization techniques, and AI applications in microbiome studies.

Baptiste Gaborieau (Université Paris Cité, France) and colleagues published a new paper showing accurate prediction of strain-level phage-bacteria interactions in E. coli using only genomic data.

It's hard to compare results across human gut virome studies. Michael Shamash (McGill University, Canada) and colleagues show that using 'predicted phage host families' can improve cross-study virome analyses and help detect disease-specific virome signatures.

Dong Li (Beijing University of Chemical Technology) and colleagues published a new paper on how phage proteins can sequester signaling molecules from TIR and cGAS-like antiviral defense enzymes.

Also check out this explainer thread by coauthor Iana Fedorova!

Elizabeth Burgener (Children's Hospital of Los Angeles) and colleagues published a new paper on how Pf phage impacts cystic fibrosis patients, with Pseudomonas infections, showing high Pf in sputum is associated with lung function decline and airway inflammation.

Is the Nagoya Protocol doing its job to ensure countries get the benefits from their own genetic resources? Hassan Salem & Martin Kaltenpoth (Max Planck Institute) argue that the protocol's implementation has impeded research due to incompatibility with microbiology, while failing to deliver substantial benefits to provider countries.

Jyot Antani (Yale University) and colleagues developed a microscopy-based technique to measure phage attachment to bacterial cells. This method provides an attractive alternative to the (literally) century-old Phage Adsorption Assay because it...

• is fast
• consumes less media
• provides single-virus readouts
• does not rely on a theoretical model to estimate adsorption rate

Feel free to reach out with any questions: jyot.antani@yale.edu. Requests for advice or collaborations are welcome!

François Rousset (Weizmann Institute of Science) and colleagues discovered a new immune signaling molecule: N7-cADPR, which is produced by phage-stimulated TIR proteins. It activates a bacterial caspase, which then degrades essential proteins to curb infection.

Tong Zhang (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and colleagues discovered a bacterial immunity protein that senses two unrelated phage proteins, showing that CapRelSJ46 in E. coli can directly bind two structurally different phage proteins using the same sensory domain. This versatility may help bacterial defenses keep pace with rapidly evolving phages.

Peter Erdmann Dougherty (University of Copenhagen) and colleagues isolated and sequenced 8 novel phages targeting wheat phyllosphere bacteria, characterizing their genomic, phylogenetic, and morphological traits. They identified DNA modifications, including 13 motif-associated single-stranded DNA breaks in Pseudomonas phage Rembedalsseter, and found related phages in various metagenomes.

PHIOGEN is seeking to explore patient experiences with recurrent UTIs and attitudes toward phage therapeutics: the study involves a brief screening questionnaire followed by a survey for qualified participants who experience ongoing UTI symptoms.

Atif Khan (phage scientist at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center in Chennai, India and longtime Phage Directory volunteer) was interviewed on the "You Make Me Sick!" podcast about his work. They talk phages, biofilms, biofouling, multidrug-resistant organisms, and phage therapy applications.

The Phage Collection Project, led by early career researchers at the University of Southampton, is pioneering a citizen science initiative to tackle AMR.

The project combines public education, clinical biobanking, and policy advocacy to advance development and implementation of phage therapeutics in the UK healthcare system.

They’ve just launched a new blog — check it out!

Join us for World Phage Week Webinar 2024, hosted by the Ibadan Phage Research Team at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

The event will take place TODAY/TOMORROW — Friday, October 25, to Saturday, October 26, 2024 (West Africa Standard Time).

Register here! And/or tune in to the live stream on YouTube: Day 1 Youtube Livestream | Day 2 Youtube Livestream

Don't miss this exciting annual event!

Darren Smith (Northumbria University) and colleagues invite phage researchers to the Viruses of Microbes - UK conference, featuring keynote speakers, over 100 postgraduate presentations, and a pre-conference phage genomics workshop.

23rd - 24th January 2025

The two-day event aims to support early-career researchers and foster collaborations within the UK phage community.

Phage Hunters Training and Research Program has announced a fundraising campaign to support phage research training in Africa. The initiative aims to equip young scientists with bioinformatics skills for in-silico phage hunting to combat antimicrobial resistance.

New phage book alert! Lina Zeldovich announced that her new book, "The Living Medicine," is out today, described by reviewers as “unputdownable” and compared to "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," making it a must-read for those interested in the intersection of medicine and storytelling (and phages!).

NIAID has announced a new $6M funding opportunity to establish Centers for Accelerating Phage Therapy to combat ESKAPE pathogens. This is the first major NIH phage therapy-specific center-level grant.

By this time next year, 2-3 phage therapy centers in the US will be funded—big news for the field!

Application deadline: January 28, 2025 Key program officer to reach out to: Kyung Moon (NIAID)

Achaogen's 2019 bankruptcy led to the loss of plazomicin, a promising aminoglycoside. John Rex and Kevin Outterson have analyzed the financial failure of plazomicin and Achaogen, summarizing key findings from a post-mortem study.

Their conclusion: novel antibiotics for small patient populations cannot be successfully commercialized in the current US market.

Mihály Koncz (HUN-REN Biological Research Centre, Szeged, Hungary) and colleagues combined phylogeographic analysis with phage typing to guide precision phage therapy, showing that a few carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii strain types dominate infections regionally, enabling development of effective region-specific phage cocktails.

Yunxue Guo (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and colleagues discovered a reverse transcriptase-mediated mechanism of prophage genome reduction in P. aeruginosa biofilms, showing that Pf4 phage-encoded RT and an ncRNA collaborate to generate superinfective variants with ~27% smaller genomes, promoting phage dissemination in biofilms.

Did you know the CDC and FDA have an Antimicrobial Resistance (AR) Isolate Bank? Researchers can order microbial isolates for free, collected from CDC's surveillance and outbreak activities. These isolates are combined into panels for testing. Since its 2015 launch, the AR Isolate Bank has distributed over 10,000 panels to more than 2,000 institutions.

(Thanks to Cathy Nguyen, CDC researcher and former Phage Directory volunteer, for this tip!)

Xin Hou (Sun Yat-sen University, China) and colleagues published a new paper on using AI to expand the diversity of the global RNA virosphere, showing 161,979 putative RNA virus species and 180 RNA virus supergroups identified in diverse global ecosystems.

Tetrapyrroles such as heme, chlorophyll, and vitamin B12 are essential for various metabolic pathways. Helen Wegner (University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, Germany) and colleagues demonstrated the presence of tetrapyrrole genes in phage sequences from aquatic environments, showing that these genes are functional and can synthesize 5-aminolevulinic acid.

Stephano Iglesias (Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia) and colleagues created a high-resolution structural atlas of Pseudomonas phage Pa193 using bioinformatics, proteomics, and cryogenic electron microscopy single particle analysis. They identified, annotated, and built atomic models for 21 polypeptide chains forming the capsid, neck, tail, and baseplate.

David Mayo-Muñoz (University of Otago, New Zealand) and colleagues identified noncoding RNAs as key players in bacteria–phage conflicts, showing their roles in bacterial immunity and anti-defense mechanisms.

Nawal Al Aazi (Gaziantep University, Turkey) and colleagues identified clinical Pseudomonas Pf phages inducible by mitomycin and investigated Pf1 phage, showing the presence of Pf1 phage associated with antibiotic effects.

ISVM members are invited to participate in the upcoming elections for the ISVM Executive Board, with voting taking place from October 7th to 21st, 2024, to shape the future of the organization and its initiatives in viruses of microbes research.

A new 'evolutionary trained' phage cocktail exploits resistance tradeoffs to target P. aeruginosa biofilms with enhanced efficacy without triggering dual-phage resistance.

PlzR inhibits type IV pili assembly in P. aeruginosa and prevents phage infection.

A new perspective piece highlights how phages, phage-derived proteins and organic acids offer potential as biocontrols for fruit crop pathogens (especially P. syringae pathovars actinidiae and syringae, which attack kiwifruit and stone fruits), and where the field is moving to next.

An array of anti-defence systems have been discovered in the ‘leading region’ of plasmids (the first to enter the cell), revealing their substantial role in evading bacterial immunity during conjugation. (Not phage exactly, but lots to learn here!)

Qeen Biotechnologies (Gatineau, Quebec) has announced the opening of its new 4,800 sq ft manufacturing facility designed for phage production, with operations starting as of September 2024.

This Week in Virology (TWiV) recorded a special live podcast episode at the 2024 Viruses of Microbes meeting in Cairns, Australia. Hosts Vincent Racaniello and Jolene Ramsey interviewed phage researchers Krystyna Dabrowska and Rob Lavigne about phage therapy, immunological challenges, personalized approaches, and new developments in phage-derived products.

Key timestamps: 23:50 - Immune responses to phages 28:52 - First 100 cases of phage therapy in Belgium 35:23 - Magistral preparation for phage therapy 41:47 - Endolysins and DNA dark matter 50:51 - Phage-derived tools for non-model organisms

Watch the full podcast on YouTube!

This Week in Virology (TWiV) recorded a special live podcast episode at the 2024 Viruses of Microbes meeting in Cairns, Australia. Hosts Vincent Racaniello and Jolene Ramsey interviewed phage researchers Krystyna Dabrowska and Rob Lavigne about phage therapy, immunological challenges, personalized approaches, and new developments in phage-derived products.

Key timestamps: 23:50 - Immune responses to phages 28:52 - First 100 cases of phage therapy in Belgium 35:23 - Magistral preparation for phage therapy 41:47 - Endolysins and DNA dark matter 50:51 - Phage-derived tools for non-model organisms

Watch the full podcast on YouTube!

A team at Singapore General Hospital has initiated individualized phage therapy for their first patient!

If you work with metagenomes (or metatranscriptomes), would like to explore what viruses/phages are in your datasets, but don't know where to start, the Modular Viromics Pipeline is for you!

Looking to find phage sequences in your metagenomic data? A new tool, Jaeger, finds more true positives, fewer false positives, in a reduced runtime!

William Summers has authored a new review on how the Cold War geopolitical climate in the US contributed to the decline of phage therapy, while it thrived in Eastern Europe.

Landman.Bio is a new company advancing sustainable phage-based solutions for combating bacterial infections in crops, leveraging over two decades of research from KU Leuven.

The second UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance  convened yesterday to address the urgent global health crisis of AMR and its implications for public health, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

A 75-year-old female patient with recurrent Pseudomonas septicaemia and arterial stents was treated using a phage–meropenem combination therapy at Tampere University Hospital, Finland. A 3-phage P. aeruginosa cocktail was given IV together with meropenem for 2 weeks. 10-month follow-up showed no adverse reactions, infection markers normalized, recovery was seen in a PET-CT scan, and no further P. aeruginosa septicaemias occurred.

For OMKO1 and LPS-5, two lytic phages used in Felix Biotech’s CF trial recently, Dea M. Müller and colleagues show that determinants of their host range in P. aeruginosa are bacterial receptors, rather than anti-phage defence mechanisms.

Peiying Ho and colleagues from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology screened the PA14NR transposon mutant library and identified key genes involved in P. aeruginosa phage resistance. They found 78 mutants capable of thriving in the presence of phages, with 23 carrying insertions in membrane composition genes, and 6 exhibiting total phage resistance.

A novel phage, TS33, targeting Hafnia species in a model Brie-like cheese community; many host factors that contribute to infectivity are O-antigen genes.

In a recent interview, Dr. Evelien Adriaenssens (Quadram Institute) discusses her career journey to becoming a Group Leader, focusing on the role of phages in the gut microbiome to promote health and combat disease. She reflects on the diverse responsibilities of managing a research group, including mentoring, formulating new research ideas, and fostering collaborations. She also shares insights on her ongoing phage therapy research, specifically targeting Pseudomonas aeruginosa in patients with chronic lung infections.

David Harper discusses the complexities and limitations of using phages as therapeutics in his recent LinkedIn post, emphasizing the challenges posed by the immune system and the size of phages compared to conventional antibiotics.

🎙️ New Podovirus Podcast Episode Alert!

I had such a great time talking to Jesus Fernandez-Rodriguez, PhD, VP of Technology at Eligo Bioscience, about how they're editing live microbes in the mouse gut with engineered phages!

🧬 Highlights & questions:

• 93% editing efficiency in gut E. coli with a single dose of a phage-derived base editor! (And it lasts for at least 6 weeks...!)
• Where are we at with microbiome therapeutics?
• How do you make phages deliver genes to live microbes?
• Is this tool just as cool as a perturbing device (to ASK questions about what happens when you turn off a bacterial gene in the gut) as it is a therapeutic?

Check out the full episode here: 🎧Spotify 📺 Youtube

📄 Here's the team's new Nature paper

🤔One thing I really wanted to know, but must remain a secret for a bit longer — what should we be targeting first with something like this?

Would love to hear your thoughts!

PhageEU is urging phage researchers to join their mission to raise awareness about the potential applications of phages and influence regulatory environments in the EU, especially with new parliamentary appointments on the horizon PhageEU mission.

Join PhageEU as a member by emailing contact@phageurope.eu!

Kurzgesagt released a new video on viromes and their impact on health, emphasizing the role of phages in microbiome dynamics! Check it out!

The BASEL collection of E. coli phages has been expanded — 36 new ones have been added! These phages were deeply characterized genomically and phenotypically, from receptors to antiviral defense sensitivity to host range. Looking at the results, they see dominant roles of the O-antigen for host recognition, and of restriction-modification systems in bacterial immunity.

Plasmid-dependent phages used to be used in phage typing, but haven’t survived the genomics era — there are no records of them in phage banks, and it’s been unclear if they can ever be recovered. However, a new wave of studies reporting the isolation of plasmid-depended phages provides new opportunities to delve into the biology of these unique viruses.

A phage cocktail targeting Yersinia pestis provided ~88% post-exposure protection in a rat model of pneumonic plague!

Here’s a handy comparison of expression systems for phage lysin production, with key considerations for host selection and evaluating recent literature.

A new first in human phase 1 randomized, double-blind trial of Intralytix's ShigActive™, a Shigella phage preparation, shows it is safe and well tolerated when orally administered.

Guadalupe Valencia-Toxqui and Jolene Ramsey (Texas A&M University) published a new phage classification guide, orienting newcomers to four common ways phages are currently classified: infection cycle, morphology, taxonomy, and supergroup. By using these classifications, researchers can determine where any novel phage fits into the scheme of the known “phage-verse”.

Nicolas Kieffer (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and colleagues published a new preprint on identification of phage defense systems encoded by mobile integrons, showing that integrons can encode phage defense systems, including Lamassu, CBASS, and abortive infection systems, and that these systems can confer resistance to multiple phages in various bacterial species.

Max Wilkinson (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and colleagues have described how phage-triggered reverse transcription assembles a toxic repetitive gene from a noncoding RNA, showing a new mode of genetic regulation in prokaryotes.

Rabia Fatima (McMaster University) and colleagues published a new paper on temperate phage-antibiotic synergy in P. aeruginosa, showing widespread synergy between temperate phages and antibiotics, but varying by phage, host, and antibiotic pairing.

Eleonora Turrini, Luca Ulfo (University of Bologna) and colleagues published a new paper on molecular engineering of an M13 phage nanovector for photodynamic treatment of colon cancer cells. They show effective colorectal cancer cell targeting and photodynamic therapy in 3D spheroids, promoting the phage as a potential tool for cancer treatment.

Congratulations to Simon Roux for winning the 2025 ASM Microbiome Data Prize for his outstanding contributions to microbiome research!

The Phage Hunters Training and Research Program (PHTRP) has launched a fundraiser to support their Phage Training Startup Fund.

This initiative aims to equip young scientists in Africa and other developing countries with the skills needed to combat AMR through phage research. Inspired by the SEA-PHAGES program, PHTRP focuses on in-silico phage hunting and bioinformatics training, empowering the next generation of researchers to address the global AMR crisis.

The funds raised will cover startup registration costs, legal fees, and operational expenses.

The ISVM (International Society for Viruses of Microbes is launching a logo design competition to create a new visual identity for the society, with submissions due by October 6th via the ISVM Board's email.

Only a few more days to vote for the International Society for Viruses of Microbes Executive Board candidates! (Ends Oct 21)

ISVM members are invited to participate in the upcoming elections for the ISVM Executive Board to shape the future of the organization and its initiatives in viruses of microbes research.

How to vote? Check your email (and if you didn't get one, check your spam folder!) Each member should have gotten an individual email with a voting link.

Only a few more days to vote for the International Society for Viruses of Microbes Executive Board candidates! (Ends Oct 21)

ISVM members are invited to participate in the upcoming elections for the ISVM Executive Board to shape the future of the organization and its initiatives in viruses of microbes research.

How to vote? Check your email (and if you didn't get one, check your spam folder!) Each member should have gotten an individual email with a voting link.

Nicholas Smith (University at Buffalo) and Dwayne Roach (San Diego State University) received a $3.6 million NIH grant to study pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of mechanistically aware phage cocktails.

Associate Professor Jeremy Barr (Monash University) received $500,000 USD from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to investigate how phages interact with the human immune system and their potential implications for treating inflammatory diseases.

Phage protein moonlighting alert! Abdulrazak Alsaleh (Liverpool John Moores University) and colleagues published a new paper on how large serine integrases utilize scavenged phage proteins to control the directionality of integration.

Amit Rimon (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and colleagues published a new paper on combinatorial treatment of pulsed blue light and phage therapy for antibiotic-resistant P. aeruginosa, showing a synergistic bactericidal effect on planktonic cultures and formed biofilms.

Matt McEnany (U Colorado) and Kevin Outterson (Boston University, Founder and Executive Director of CARB-X) published a new paper on evaluating Germany's new antimicrobial reimbursement reforms. They compare these reforms to delinked pull incentives (where governments pay drug companies after they make their drug, independently of how much their drug is sold).

David Pride, Douglas Conrad (UC San Diego) and Daria Van Tyne (University of Pittsburgh) received a $1,487,500 research grant from Emily's Entourage, a CF nonprofit to launch a phage clinical trial for combatting CF infections.

Cytophage Technologies (Winnipeg, Canada) has announced a launch of ready-to-use lyophilized phage tablets for poultry.

Paul Kim (Locus Biosciences, Inc.) and colleagues published a paper on the results of the first phase of their Phase 2 ELIMINATE clinical trial, where they used a CRISPR-Cas3-enhanced phage cocktail to treat uncomplicated urinary tract infections. They found a well-tolerated dosing strategy, reduced E. coli in urine, and will now move onto the next stage of the trial.

Tea Glonti (Queen Astrid Military Hospital) and colleagues published a new paper on designing therapeutic phage cocktails based on naturally occurring phage groupings. They transferred naturally occurring phage groups directly from their sources to in vitro, introduced an 'interpretation model curve' for phage liquid culturing, and found their cocktails largely performed well and inhibited resistant mutant growth.

Joshua Jones (UK Phage Therapy, University of Edinburgh) and colleagues have provided guidelines for assessing patient suitability for unlicensed phage therapy in the UK, showing clinical and microbiological considerations for local clinical teams.

In episode 2 of the Podovirus podcast, 'Getting Phage Research Funded', Jessica Sacher interviews Dr. Joe Campbell, who spent the past decade+ as a program officer at NIAID, the US gov's main infectious disease funding body.

Dr. Campbell reflects on his role in making it easier for phage research to get NIH funding, and shares his perspective on what's next for the field, including the growing importance of phage therapy centers like Phage Australia and Phage Canada.

Subscribe to Podovirus to get the next one, which will be an interview with Dr. Jesus Fernandez of Eligo Bioscience about their recent paper on microbiome editing with engineered lambda phage!

In episode 2 of the Podovirus podcast, 'Getting Phage Research Funded', Jessica Sacher interviews Dr. Joe Campbell, who spent the past decade+ as a program officer at NIAID, the US gov's main infectious disease funding body.

Dr. Campbell reflects on his role in making it easier for phage research to get NIH funding, and shares his perspective on what's next for the field, including the growing importance of phage therapy centers like Phage Australia and Phage Canada.

Subscribe to Podovirus to get the next one, which will be an interview with Dr. Jesus Fernandez of Eligo Bioscience about their recent paper on microbiome editing with engineered lambda phage!

Daria Van Tyne (University of Pittsburgh) received a $70K grant to optimize phage therapy for Burkholderia spp. infections, showing potential advancements in treating cystic fibrosis patients. Also, Daria has just been promoted to Associate Professor! Congrats Daria!!

Dr. Siân Owen was interviewed the You Make Me Sick podcast about her work using experimental evolution and computational approaches to study AMR bacteria and phages during her postdoc at the Baym Lab at Harvard Medical School. She announced she’s now starting her own lab at the Wadsworth Center in Albany, New York — congrats Siân!!

Katrine Whiteson (University of California, Irvine) has been awarded a Pilot Program grant for phage therapy research by the Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute to develop and refine phage therapy protocols for treating antibiotic-resistant infections.

Yuval Mulla (University of Cologne) and colleagues quantified phage amplification rates using a mathematical model called PHORCE, showing that amplification rates of E. coli phages vary widely and that phage-antibiotic interactions depend primarily on the antibiotic type.

Stephen Tang (Columbia University) and colleagues described de novo gene synthesis by an antiviral reverse transcriptase, showing a novel approach to gene synthesis.

Adrián Cortés-Martín (University College Cork) and colleagues published a new paper on isolation and characterization of Septuagintavirus, showing a novel clade of Escherichia coli phages within the subfamily Vequintavirinae.

Célia Souque (Harvard Medical School) and colleagues published a new paper reviewing evolutionary mechanisms driving antibiotic resistance at different scales.

Dr. Katharina Höfer (Philipps University Marburg) has been awarded a LOEWE top professorship — 2.8 million euros over a period of five years to support her research into the role of RNA modifications in biology and new mechanisms of gene regulation. Congratulations Katharina!

Ellie Jameson (Bangor University), environmental virologist and scientific illustrator, has published her phage art collection (drawings, cartoons, etc!) on her new website. Check out her work (& reach out to commission her to illustrate your research!).

The Phage Hunters Training and Research Program in Nairobi has been hosting a ‘Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and Phage Therapy series’ on LinkedIn Live — recordings are available! Recently they had a panel on AMR and phage therapy, and another on phage banks for developing countries featuring panelists like Steffanie Strathdee, Sabrina Green, Tobi Nagel, Atif Khan, and Emmanuel Nnadi.

Ashlan Kunz Coyne (Wayne State University, Detroit, USA) and colleagues published a new paper on evaluating phage-antibiotic combinations against ESKAPE pathogens, showing synergistic and antagonistic interactions.

Cody Martin (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and colleagues published a new preprint on Protein Set Transformer: A protein-based genome language model to power high diversity viromics.

Geeta Ram (NYU Grossman School of Medicine) and colleagues published a new paper on incorporating the gene encoding lysostaphin into their ‘Antibacterial Drone System’, showing expanded killing field and effective treatment of mixed bacterial infections.

Ana Catarina Duarte (Instituto de Productos Lácteos de Asturias, Spain) and colleagues examined the synergistic removal of S. aureus biofilms using phage Kayvirus rodi and exopolysaccharide depolymerase Dpo7, showing a significant decrease in biomass and viable cell number with the combination treatment.

Cátia Carreira (University of Copenhagen) and colleagues have written a perspective on the impact of viruses on soil biogeochemistry and argued for their consideration in soil microbial food webs, showing viruses as key regulators of soil food web dynamics.

Armata Pharmaceuticals received a $5.25 million grant from the US Department of Defense for their AP-SA02 'diSArm' clinical trial to treat S. aureus bacteremia.

How do we elucidate required genes in non-model phage-host pairs? Milan Gerovac (University of Würzburg, Germany) and colleagues published a new method of 'non-genetic' mRNA silencing (exogenous delivery of programmable antisense oligomers) to identify essential phage genes.

Hypersaline environments harbor the highest concentrations of virus-like particles reported for aquatic ecosystems. Rodrigo Sanchez-Martinez (University of Alicante, Spain) and colleagues investigated episomal phage maintenance in the salt-tolerant bacteria Salinibacter ruber. They saw that episomal maintenance of the phage and lysis inhibition allow for host-virus co-existence under high MOI infections specifically.

Nicolas Kieffer (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain) and colleagues investigated the role of mobile integrons in phage defense systems, showing that integrons can confer multiphage resistance and limit prophage activation.

Erica Birkholz (University of California, San Diego) and colleagues investigated the role of a homing endonuclease in viral competition, showing that it interferes with the replication of competing phages, providing a fitness advantage.

The Women In Phage initiative is conducting a survey to understand the experiences of women in science and research, particularly in bacteriophage research. Your insights will help identify challenges and strategies for future generations. Participate here.

Ely O. Aboka of the Phage Hunters Training and Research Program in Nairobi, Kenya will host a LinkedIn Live panel discussion on July 31st, 2024 from 9:00 PM EAT on the topic 'Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) & Phage Therapy.' Panelists include Prof. Steffanie Strathdee, Dr. Sabrina Green, and Christopher Shaffer, with Dr. Atunga serving as the session moderator.

The 14th annual Oxford Phage Conference will be held September 2-3, 2024 in Oxford, UK as a hybrid event.

Confirmed speakers include Professor Martha Clokie (UK) | Professor Aidan Coffey (Ireland) | Dr Mariam Dadiani (Georgia) | Professor Heather Allison (UK) | Professor David Gally (UK) | Dr Janine Bowring (Denmark) | Dr Antonia Sagona (UK) | Dr Sabrina Green (Belgium) | Dr Christian Fitch (UK) | Professor Paul Bollyky (USA).

See also the conference organizer’s youtube channel for past talks.

Want to submit a session proposal for #ASMicrobe 2025 (particularly in the field of microbial ecology, evolution, and genomics)? The deadline is in a week! Submit your proposal here.

Canadian phage company Cytophage Technologies announced a collaboration with a Pan-Asian agrifood company in Singapore to expand its poultry phage product commercialization. Cytophage anticipates conducting trials with this commercial partner starting end of 2024.

Nils Birkholz (University of Otago) and colleagues investigated the dual regulatory mechanisms of the Aca2 protein, showing that it represses anti-CRISPR gene expression by binding both DNA and RNA.

Florian Tesson (Institut Pasteur) and colleagues published a new paper on the DefenseFinder webservice/wiki/database for antiphage defense mechanisms, showing an updated resource with 152 identified systems.

Robby Concha Eloko (I2sysbio, University of Valencia, Spain) and colleagues modeled the interplay between Klebsiella prophages and their depolymerases, showing significant predictive ability for capsular tropism.

In a new blog post, Alima Yahia (a student at The Knowledge Society starting at Columbia University this Fall) explores phages and why they're needed — including her own challenges with antibiotics. This is a fun, refreshing read; great work Alima!

ICTV's Computational Virus Taxonomy Challenge is now open, inviting bioinformaticians to classify a set of viral sequences using a bioinformatics pipeline of their choice or design.

Pipelines should be fully and easily reproducible and code and environment to run it should be made available, and will be evaluated using the Taxonomy Release MSL39 as well as reproducibility, speed, accuracy at different ranks, for different types of viruses, etc.

Contact Cédric Lood and Bas Dutilh with questions or suggestions!

ICTV's Computational Virus Taxonomy Challenge is now open, inviting bioinformaticians to classify a set of viral sequences using a bioinformatics pipeline of their choice or design.

Pipelines should be fully and easily reproducible and code and environment to run it should be made available, and will be evaluated using the Taxonomy Release MSL39 as well as reproducibility, speed, accuracy at different ranks, for different types of viruses, etc.

Contact Cédric Lood and Bas Dutilh with questions or suggestions!

Viruses of Microbes 2024 (Cairns, Australia) has just come to a close, and it looked to be an EPIC event! Check #vom2024 on Twitter for countless updates and recaps of people’s favourite talks!

Also, the next VoM location has officially been announced: it will be July 6-10, 2026 in Prague! Hope to see many of you there!!

The iVoM webinar series season 3 concluded with great success, attracting over 600 registrations from 11 countries and featuring 23 speakers, including 18 early-career researchers, discussing the latest research and advancements in microbial viruses.

The ISVM has released its Viruses of Microbes-themed issue in microLife journal! Led by Prof. Martin Loessner and Prof. Alexander Harms, the issue highlights recent discoveries in bacterial immunity mechanisms and the importance of phages in the microbiome, based on research presented at the Viruses of Microbes 2023 conference in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Armata Pharmaceuticals has completed enrollment of its Phase 2 Tailwind study, which will evaluate efficacy of inhaled AP-PA02 in non-CF bronchiectasis patients with chronic pulmonary P. aeruginosa infection. Data anticipated in the second half of 2024.

Proteon Pharmaceuticals, JAFRAL, and PTC Phage Technology Center have established a non-profit organization called PhageEU in Brussels. With newly elected members of EU Parliament and European Commission coming into office, PhageEU sees an opportunity to shape the EU's political and regulatory agenda, so that the full potential of phages can be realized.

Jens Hör (Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research, Würzburg, Germany) and colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science have discovered that bacteria conjugate ubiquitin-like proteins to interfere with phage assembly. Here’s Jens' explainer thread.

Mark Grevsen Martinet (Jena University Hospital/Friedrich-Schiller University, Germany) and colleagues have published a preprint on how temperate Pf-like phages induced in P. aeruginosa biofilms can modulate phage and antibiotic resistance, potentially complicating phage therapy for cystic fibrosis patients.

Always great to find phage researchers in countries we haven’t had representation from before! Tasnime Abdou Ahmad (American University of Beirut, Lebanon) and colleagues isolated and characterized a novel E. phage, AUBRB02. They discuss potential implications for phage therapy in Lebanon.

Andreas Brödel (Eligo Biosciences) and colleagues have successfully edited E. coli genes in the mouse gut using engineered phages. They used (non-replicative) phage to deliver a base editor, and achieved >90% modification without adverse effects. Edited bacteria were stably maintained in the mouse gut for at least 42 days following treatment.

Fereshteh Bayat (McMaster University) and colleagues have designed a high-throughput phage screening platform comprised of a portable library of individual shelf-stable, ready-to-use phages, in solid tablets that include a phage + luciferin + luciferase. Best of all, their phage susceptibility test takes 30-120 min!

Hannelore Longin (KU Leuven, Belgium) and colleagues have reviewed the emerging role of posttranslational modifications during phage-bacteria interactions, highlighting their potential impact on protein behavior and suggesting a comprehensive, multipronged pipeline (based on bioinformatics, mass spec, multi-omics, structural biology and mutational studies) to help drive this field forward.

Emma Spencer (University of Idaho) and colleagues published a new preprint on phages of honeybee pathogen Paenibacillus larvae. They looked at resistance evolution and how phage resistant isolates developed reduced pathogenicity — and phages also developed counterresistance — a good sign for the bees!

A recent meta-analysis reveals that infections are a major (>50%) cause of non-relapse-associated deaths following CAR-T cell therapy.

On Nov 19-20, the International Alliance for Biological Standardization (Amsterdam, Netherlands) is hosting a virtual scientific workshop about the veterinary use of phages, specifically looking at quality, safety and efficacy. Speakers from Zoetis, Queen Astrid Military Hospital, and more! Submit posters by Sept 16.

In a recent episode of the PhageCast podcast, Graham Hatfull (University of Pittsburgh) discusses the importance of mycobacteriophages and their potential for phage therapy against M. abscessus.

IPATH is calling for labs to help find Achromobacter phages for an upcoming clinical trial for cystic fibrosis with phage therapy, inviting contributions and further information via email at ipath@health.ucsd.edu.

Cytophage Technologies Ltd. have shared the recording of their first investor call since becoming a public company.

The DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) is hosting the "VEGA 2024: Viral EcoGenomics and Applications" symposium, taking place on November 12-13, 2024, in Berkeley, California. The symposium aims to bring together the viral ecogenomics community to discuss capturing and characterizing uncultivated viruses, understanding their ecological roles, and exploring their biotechnological potential.

The DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) is hosting the "VEGA 2024: Viral EcoGenomics and Applications" symposium, taking place on November 12-13, 2024, in Berkeley, California. The symposium aims to bring together the viral ecogenomics community to discuss capturing and characterizing uncultivated viruses, understanding their ecological roles, and exploring their biotechnological potential.

Tobi Nagel and Francesca Hodges have organized a hybrid meeting to discuss therapeutic phage bank recommendations.

The meeting is scheduled for July 15th in Cairns, Australia from 1-2:30 PM Australian Eastern Standard Time (GMT+10) (5-10 min walk from VoM convention center in Cairns, which will begin at 3pm that day).

The goal is to address differing opinions within the phage community on key topics identified through their global survey.

Please register your interest above if you’ll be coming!

The DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) is hosting the "VEGA 2024: Viral EcoGenomics and Applications" symposium, taking place on November 12-13, 2024, in Berkeley, California. The symposium aims to bring together the viral ecogenomics community to discuss capturing and characterizing uncultivated viruses, understanding their ecological roles, and exploring their biotechnological potential.

PHAGE: Therapy, Applications, and Research Journal has announced an impact factor increase to 3.5.

A recent episode of BBC Sounds' "In Our Time" interviewed Martha Clokie and James Ebdon about how phages can be used to track and cure bacterial illnesses.

Chantel Trost (University of Toronto) and colleagues found that the anti-CRISPR protein AcrIF25 disrupts the type I-F CRISPR-Cas system by pulling apart Cas7 from its guide RNA, one subunit at a time. (And it does this with no apparent enzymatic activity!)

Dinesh Subedi (Monash University) and colleagues have developed a five-phage cocktail, Entelli-02 against 156 clinical Enterobacter cloacae complex strains from the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. They show that Entelli-02 exhibits broad host coverage (99%) and efficacy (92%), and have produced it as a therapeutic-grade product, verified and endotoxin unit-compliant, ready for use.

Hadil Onallah (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and colleagues have laid out a step-by-step protocol for compassionate phage therapy outlining phage matching, treatment, and monitoring for non-resolving infections.

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC)-induced diarrhea in piglets can lead to weight loss and death. Michela Gambino (University of Copenhagen) and colleagues characterized a collection of phages infecting porcine ETEC, and a collection of 79 diverse host strains. Their work points toward multifactorial resistance mechanisms of ETEC to phage infection.

The (NIH Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases) recently discussed a new suggested funding solicitation for phage therapy centers — here’s the recording of the council meeting!

The Phage Bioinformatics Wish List Survey is live!

(Thanks to the 31 respondents to date! The data is shaping up to be super informative!)

This survey aims to better understand the needs and satisfaction levels of phage biologists regarding various functions and bioinformatics tools used for phage sequence analysis, particularly in support of phage therapy. Your insights are invaluable in guiding future developments in this field.

This survey has been prepared by Bishoy M. Zaki and Ramy K. Aziz. It is not affiliated with any private or academic organization to which they belong.

Jonas Fernbach (ETH Zurich) and colleagues used the PhagePromoter algorithm to identify intergenic loci in the S. aureus phage K genome for targeted payload integration, and validated their approach by engineering recombinant phages with bioluminescent reporters. Their study shows how integrating computational approaches into phage engineering can streamline the process.

Deepto Mozumdar (UCSF) and colleagues show that jumbo phage ΦKZ assembles a lipid vesicle upon infection. This early phage infection (EPI) vesicle contains phage proteins, DNA, host lipids, and membrane proteins. It protects the phage genome, enables early transcription, and facilitates transfer to the phage nucleus.

Helena Shomar from Institut Pasteur and colleagues identified over 2000 lanthipeptide biosynthetic gene clusters in Actinobacteria with anti-phage defense properties, which they termed "lanthiphages". These clusters, often found in defense islands, confer anti-phage defense to Streptomyces coelicolor.

Sophia Zborowsky (Institut Pasteur) and colleagues demonstrate that alveolar macrophages reduce pulmonary phage density in a murine pneumonia model, limiting phage therapy efficacy against P. aeruginosa.

Chujin Ruan (China Agricultural University) and colleagues have shown that phage predation of E. coli during surface-associated growth increases plasmid transfer. They found that predation slows spatial demixing of two E. coli populations, increasing cell-cell contact and conjugation, and that this occurs even without antibiotic selection for the plasmid.

Attention phage researchers! You have until Monday June 24th to make your opinions (on phage banks) count!

Tobi Nagel (Phages for Global Health) and Francesca Hodges (Innovate UK Business Connect) are working to capture the global phage community's recommendations for curating and managing phage banks around the world.

Phage researchers are invited to agree/disagree with the compiled preliminary list of Recommendations for Phage Banks.

This has been a MONUMENTAL effort by Tobi and Fran (and many phage community members!) over the past TWO years. They've hosted 'town hall' events at Viruses of Microbes Tbilisi, Evergreen International Phage Conference, and online via extensive working groups and surveys.

Please take a few minutes (before Monday!) and add your views, so we can move forward as a community toward well-characterized phage collections that we can all use, share, and build from.

P.S. The current status of the project will be presented at the Viruses of Microbes 2024 conference!

NIAID's June 2024 Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID) Council-approved concepts include new initiatives for 2026 on phage therapy for ESKAPE pathogens.

In a new preprint, Aleksander Szymczak (Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Poland) and colleagues investigate the triadic dynamics between the gastric microbiome, phageome, and host genotype. They reveal non-universal phage-host associations, highlighting human genetic influence on phage presence.

Lizett Ortiz de Ora (UC Irvine) and colleagues have developed "Phollow," a live imaging method to track gut phage transmission in microbial communities and animals, revealing rapid virion uptake and dissemination.

Ryan Cook (Quadram Institute Bioscience, UK) and colleagues have identified many phages that repurpose stop codons to encode amino acids. They re-annotated these sequences with modified versions of Pharokka and Prokka to automatically predict stop codon reassignment prior to annotation.

Mihály Koncz (HUN-REN Biological Research Centre, Szeged, Hungary) demonstrate the utility of pathogen genomic surveillance combined with high-throughput phage typing for enabling phage therapy. Their analysis reveals that a few strain types dominate infections in each world region, with geographical distributions remaining stable for six years.

In an upcoming course in Lyon, France (Nov 12-13 2024), the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) will explore current clinical experiences, compassionate use protocols, cohort studies, and ongoing clinical trials in phage therapy, emphasizing global regulatory navigation and implementation.

Course coordinator: Tristan Ferry.

Register by Oct 27, and apply for an attendance grant by Sept 20.

In an upcoming course in Lyon, France (Nov 12-13 2024), the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) will explore current clinical experiences, compassionate use protocols, cohort studies, and ongoing clinical trials in phage therapy, emphasizing global regulatory navigation and implementation.

Course coordinator: Tristan Ferry.

Register by Oct 27, and apply for an attendance grant by Sept 20.

In an upcoming course in Lyon, France (Nov 12-13 2024), the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) will explore current clinical experiences, compassionate use protocols, cohort studies, and ongoing clinical trials in phage therapy, emphasizing global regulatory navigation and implementation.

Course coordinator: Tristan Ferry.

Register by Oct 27, and apply for an attendance grant by Sept 20.

In an upcoming course in Lyon, France (Nov 12-13 2024), the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) will explore current clinical experiences, compassionate use protocols, cohort studies, and ongoing clinical trials in phage therapy, emphasizing global regulatory navigation and implementation.

Course coordinator: Tristan Ferry.

Register by Oct 27, and apply for an attendance grant by Sept 20.

New phage conference alert — this time in South America!!

Phage researchers at the Universidad de los Andes invite the international phage community to Phage Option Congress 2024 (Dec 4-6, 2024 in Cartagena, Colombia).

This will be the 3rd Latin American Meeting on Bacteriophages, and will span phage biology and applications across human, animal and plant health.

Speakers include Sandro Sulakvelidze (Intralytix), Mikeljon Nikolich (Walter Reed Army Institute of Research), Sofia Corte-Real (Technophage), Frenk Smrekar (Jafral), Krystyna Dabrowska (Polish Academy of Sciences), and more to be announced!

Organizers include Alejandro Reyes, Mariana Piuri, Martha Vives, Santiago Hernandez, Viviana Clavijo, and Sandra Morales.

Register here.

Registration is now open for the 2024 International Soil Virus Conference!

Soil virologists and enthusiasts will gather to explore the multifaceted roles of soil viruses within a One Health framework, with a special focus on meta-omics characterization of soil viruses and their connections with biogeochemistry, food web dynamics, and soil health.

The meeting takes place June 25 to June 27 at the University of California Livermore Collaboration Center (virtual option available).

Register by June 14!

Lina Zeldovich, an author who grew up in a family of Soviet scientists, published a new book, ‘The Living Medicine: How a Lifesaving Cure Was Nearly Lost—and Why It Will Rescue Us When Antibiotics Fail’. She explores the history and potential of phages, tracing the journey of phage therapy from its discovery to its near extinction and current revival.

Steffanie Strathdee read the book and tweeted “If you thought you knew everything about #phagetherapy, you were wrong!”.

HYpharm GmbH and the German Center for Infection Research announced that their phage lysin HY-133 has entered phase I clinical trials. HY-133 aims to prevent nasal colonization by MRSA. The trial is conducted at the University Hospital of Tübingen to test the safety and toxicity of HY-133 in healthy volunteers.

Deepto Mozumdar (University of California, San Francisco) and colleagues have characterized a new lipid-based jumbo phage compartment — a hub for early phage infection. The study explores how phage ΦKZ assembles a vesicle to protect its genome from host defenses during early infection of P. aeruginosa, facilitating genome protection, transcription, and transfer to the phage nucleus.

Khalimat Murtazalieva (European Bioinformatics Institute) and colleagues have discovered 145 phage anti-defence systems (ADSs) that counteract 27 of the 152 known bacterial defence families. They discuss high-throughput approaches which are indispensable for discovering new ADSs.

Beatriz Beamud (Institut Pasteur) and colleagues have discovered that many bacterial defense systems against phages are encoded by mobile genetic elements, challenging traditional views of bacterial immunity.

In a new preprint, Ritam Das and Janina Rahlff (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany) describe a positive correlation between the number of structural genes and above-average guanine-cytosine (GC) content in phage genomes.

Check out this episode of the Phage Therapy Today podcast, which features Dr. Mercedes Gonzalez from INCATE (an AMR startup funder/accelerator) and Dr. Gregorio Iraola at Kinzbio, an INCATE recipient and founder of a new phage startup in Uruguay, about global funding opportunities for phage therapy.

One hundred personalized phage treatments, combined! Not only did Jean-Paul Pirnay and colleagues at the Queen Astrid Military Hospital in Belgium provide phages for 100 cases, they also published a full analysis of the outcomes! This led Nature Microbiology to write an editorial advocating for phage therapy development (win!). See also this commentary on the paper from Jon Iredell and colleagues, and this blog post and Twitter thread by coauthor Sabrina Green, who breaks down the main learnings.

Katie Wiebe (Cytophage Technologies, Inc) and colleagues have outlined a scalable and efficient production strategy for the ETEC phage ‘Phage75’, which accounts for infection load, MOI, temperature, media, harvest time, and host bacteria (they screened variables impacting production in a high throughput OD assay). They demonstrate this works in flasks at 3 scales as well as in the Cellexus CellMaker bioreactor.

Qingquan (Kevin) Chen (Stanford University) and colleagues have demonstrated that filamentous Pf phages of P. aeruginosa hinder antibiotic diffusion through CF sputum via electrostatic binding.

In a recent perspective piece, Christine Szymanski (University of Georgia) highlights the limitless resources for exploitation that phages provide. She discusses their use in various fields such as phage therapy, gene transduction, and glyco-tool discovery, among others.

The Centre for Phage Research at the University of Leicester, UK is celebrating its one-year anniversary! Martha Clokie and Andrew Millard reflect on the first year.

Registration is now open for the 2024 International Soil Virus Conference!

Soil virologists and enthusiasts will gather to explore the multifaceted roles of soil viruses within a One Health framework, with a special focus on meta-omics characterization of soil viruses and their connections with biogeochemistry, food web dynamics, and soil health.

The meeting takes place June 25 to June 27 at the University of California Livermore Collaboration Center (virtual option available).

Register by June 14!

Meow! A cat named Squeaks needed phage therapy after falling 3 stories, and thanks to Ronen Hazan’s lab in Jerusalem, she got it, and it saved her leg!

Stephen Tang (Columbia University, USA) and colleagues published a new preprint on de novo gene synthesis by an antiviral reverse transcriptase. They demonstrate bacterial creation of extrachromosomal genes via rolling-circle reverse transcription of non-coding RNA, and how it results in antiviral immunity.

Toomas Mets (Lund University, Sweden) and colleagues published a new paper on the mechanism of phage sensing and restriction by toxin-antitoxin-chaperone systems. They show how E. coli TAC systems detect and neutralize phages by targeting major tail proteins and modifying mRNA, representing a novel hybrid antiphage defense mechanism.

Toshiki Nagakubo (University of Tsukuba, Japan) and colleagues published a new paper on how contractile injection systems promote Streptomyces spore formation via a phage tapemeasure-related protein.

Phages spotted on the big screen! "The Good Doctor" TV series finale apparently involves treatment of an important character with phage therapy!

Registration is now open for the 2024 International Soil Virus Conference!

Soil virologists and enthusiasts will gather to explore the multifaceted roles of soil viruses within a One Health framework, with a special focus on meta-omics characterization of soil viruses and their connections with biogeochemistry, food web dynamics, and soil health.

The meeting takes place June 25 to June 27 at the University of California Livermore Collaboration Center (virtual option available).

Register by June 14!

Dimi Boeckaerts and colleagues have developed a new AI model, PhageHostLearn, which predicts Klebsiella phage-host interactions at the strain level, and in a ‘ranking format’ that is directly actionable in the lab. Paper | Behind-the-paper blog post | Twitter explainer by Dimi

Cristina Howard-Varona (Ohio State University) and colleagues used a systems biology approach to show how virocells (virus-infected cells) reprogram their metabolism according to different nutrient conditions like low phosphate, and how these responses depend on which phage is infecting the cell.

Svenja Thöneböhn (Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Germany) and colleagues have identified new components of the Shewanella phage LambdaSo lysis system, including a pinholin/signal-anchor-release (SAR) endolysin system and a two-component spanin module, which are required for inducing cell lysis and phage egress.

M. J. N. Thomas (University of Manchester) and colleagues published a new paper in mSystems called ‘What makes a temperate phage an effective bacterial weapon?’. They combine mathematical models and experimental work to reveal how temperate phage traits like lysis probability and induction rate determine their effectiveness. They found that the optimal combination of traits varied with the initial frequency of lysogens within a population.

Niels Vander Elst (Karolinska Institute, Sweden) has reviewed the potential of phage-derived endolysins against bovine mastitis caused by streptococci and staphylococci, highlighting recent progress in engineering endolysins for robust activity in challenging conditions.

ASM Microbe 2024 (June 13-17 in Atlanta, Georgia) is hosting a session called Phage Therapy in the Age of AMR: Strategies to Accelerate Phage Therapy from Lab to Market this year! Hear from Ashlan Kunz Coyne, Susan Lehman, Ghady Haidar, Kevin Kim, and more!

Wilfried Moreira (Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering) invites submissions to a Special Issue of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences entitled "Bacteriophage Biology and Bacteriophage-Derived Technologies".

The Phage Bioinformatics Wish List Survey is live!

(Thanks to the 31 respondents to date! The data is shaping up to be super informative!)

This survey aims to better understand the needs and satisfaction levels of phage biologists regarding various functions and bioinformatics tools used for phage sequence analysis, particularly in support of phage therapy. Your insights are invaluable in guiding future developments in this field.

This survey has been prepared by Bishoy M. Zaki and Ramy K. Aziz. It is not affiliated with any private or academic organization to which they belong.

Dr Ameneh Khatami (University of Sydney, Phage Australia) has been awarded $4.3 million to investigate the use of a locally produced two-phage combination that targets S. aureus to see if it provides an advantage in addition to antibiotics in treating patients with severe bloodstream infections.

Marie Attwood (University of Leicester) and colleagues published a new preprint on the development of antibacterial drug-plus-phage combination assays. They demonstrate that microbroth methodologies based on ISO 2776 and time-kill curves can effectively assess their combined efficacy.

Could phages play a role in microbial adaptation to spaceflight conditions? Iris Irby and Jared Broddrick (NASA Ames Research Center) have shown that bacterial strains from the International Space Station show significant differences in phage-associated genes compared to terrestrial strains.

Chutikarn Chitboonthavisuk (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and colleagues published a new preprint on systematic genome-wide discovery of host factors governing phage infectivity. They describe 'PHAGEPACK', a novel assay combining CRISPR interference with phage packaging, revealing new host pathways affecting phage fitness and potential targets for enhancing phage susceptibility by a billion-fold.

Stephanie Lynch (University of Sydney) and colleagues published the results of a survey on clinical needs and attitudes towards phage therapy among the cystic fibrosis community. The study highlights a significant reliance on antibiotics among CF patients, 62% awareness of phage therapy, and 96% interest in participating in phage therapy trials.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is hosting a webinar on environmental use of phages on May 16. This is the third and final in the series exploring the broader use of phages from an AMR One Health perspective.

Watch the first two in the series: phage in humans (attended by 1400!) and phage in animals (attended by 700!).

Also, WHO Europe just created a dedicated Bacteriophage group — anyone can join!

Registration is now open for the 2024 International Soil Virus Conference!

Soil virologists and enthusiasts will gather to explore the multifaceted roles of soil viruses within a One Health framework, with a special focus on meta-omics characterization of soil viruses and their connections with biogeochemistry, food web dynamics, and soil health.

The meeting takes place June 25 to June 27 at the University of California Livermore Collaboration Center (virtual option available).

Register by June 14!

The Phage Bioinformatics Wish List Survey is live!

(Thanks to the 31 respondents to date! The data is shaping up to be super informative!)

This survey aims to better understand the needs and satisfaction levels of phage biologists regarding various functions and bioinformatics tools used for phage sequence analysis, particularly in support of phage therapy. Your insights are invaluable in guiding future developments in this field.

This survey has been prepared by Bishoy M. Zaki and Ramy K. Aziz. It is not affiliated with any private or academic organization to which they belong.

From David Bikard via Twitter: Hello phage phriends. Do you have examples of anti-phage defense systems that were shown to tolerate lysogeny but target the phage when it enters its lytic cycle ? (beyond type III CRISPR)

Catherine Hernandez (University of California, Berkeley) provides evidence supporting the role of coevolution in maintaining diversity among phages, revealing that coevolved phages have more mutations and greater congruence across populations than evolved phages.

Wanangwa Ndovie (Jagiellonian University) and colleagues published a new preprint on rapid, accurate estimation of genetic relatedness between millions of viral genome pairs using a new tool called MANIAC.

Despite their unique biology and biotech potential, only a small number of plasmid-dependent phages have been characterized. Natalia Quinones-Olvera (Harvard Medical School) and colleagues published the results of their recent systematic search for new ones!

Jun-Tao Zhang (Southern University of Science and Technology, China) colleagues have shown the structural basis for phage-mediated activation and repression of the anti-phage defense system DSR2. They use cryoEM to show how DSR2 interacts with phage components, influencing phage propagation.

Bradley Schmitz (National University of Singapore) and colleagues have established criteria for identifying good surrogates for water reuse, including 11 viruses, 2 phages, and 3 bacteria.

Graham Hatfull, a phage researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences for his distinguished achievements in research, recognizing his work on mycobacteriophages and his extensive catalog of these phages. Congrats Graham!!

Registration is now open for the 2024 International Soil Virus Conference!

Soil virologists and enthusiasts will gather to explore the multifaceted roles of soil viruses within a One Health framework, with a special focus on meta-omics characterization of soil viruses and their connections with biogeochemistry, food web dynamics, and soil health.

The meeting takes place June 25 to June 27 at the University of California Livermore Collaboration Center (virtual option available).

Register by June 14!

Ryan Cook (Quadram Institute) and colleagues investigated the differences in viral populations recovered from human gut samples using Nanopore and Illumina sequencing technologies, finding that while Illumina is preferable for fully resolved viral genomes, a hybrid approach combining both technologies provides a more authentic representation of viral diversity.

Anisha M. Thanki (University of Leicester) and colleagues found that broad host range phages can effectively target and clear Clostridium perfringens in poultry.

Claire Kokontis (UC San Francisco) and colleagues have discovered the importance of conserved jumbo phage factors for protein import into a phage nucleus.

Jirapat Thongchol (Texas A&M University) and colleagues have shown how Pseudomonas phage PP7 utilizes the type IV pilus (T4P) to enter host cells.

Mateusz Szymczak (University of Warsaw) and colleagues have developed an effective antibiofilm strategy using phages armed with silver nanoparticles.

The International Society of Viruses of Microorganisms (ISVM) is inviting enthusiastic and dedicated members to apply to become organizers of the Viruses of Microbes 2026 conference by 30 April 2024, with the selected organizers to be announced in mid-June 2024 at the upcoming Viruses of Microbes conference (VoM 2024) in Cairns, Australia.

Registration is now open for the 2024 International Soil Virus Conference!

Soil virologists and enthusiasts will gather to explore the multifaceted roles of soil viruses within a One Health framework, with a special focus on meta-omics characterization of soil viruses and their connections with biogeochemistry, food web dynamics, and soil health.

The meeting takes place June 25 to June 27 at the University of California Livermore Collaboration Center (virtual option available).

Register by June 14!

Actiphage TB, a novel phage-based TB diagnostic developed by PBD Biotech, has been recognized as a semi-finalist in the ADLM 2024 Disruptive Technology Awards.

Michael Koeris (who has founded multiple phage companies, and is one of Capsid & Tail’s earliest/longest-standing supporters) has been appointed as the new Office Director of the Biological Technologies Office at DARPA, where he will prioritize advancements in synthetic biology, including AI in biology and space biotechnology. Congrats Mike!!

The Leo Foundation has granted 4 million DKK to a new innovative phage therapy project led by Thomas Sicheritz-Pontén (University of Copenhagen), aiming to combat necrotizing soft tissue infections by harnessing Group A Strep-targeting phages.

Swiss startup NEMIS Technologies AG will focus on the use of phage technology for food safety, starting with Listeria.

Samuel Greenrod (University of Oxford) and colleagues explored the effects of warming on the interaction between the P. aeruginosa and three diverse lytic phages. They found that while temperatures up to 40°C had minimal impact, 42°C significantly hindered phage infectivity due to disrupted attachment and replication processes.

Hiba Baaziz (Virginia Tech) and colleagues showed that subtle changes in the lysis-lysogeny decision of Salmonella phage P22 can dramatically impact the emergence of phage resistance.

Phage Canada, a newly established non-profit organization aiming to support and advance phage research and phage therapeutics in Canada, has a new website and is open for membership!

Researchers: want to help develop a phage-based TB diagnostic? Consider sharing samples from previous studies with the team at PDB Biotech. Dr. Timothy Rodwell’s lab at UCSD has already donated over 2,000 frozen PBMC samples for this work, and the company is looking for more. Email rachel@holdsworth-associates.co.uk to learn more!

Nicole Schmid (University of Giessen) and colleagues have described the interactions between a Shewanella inovirus and an autonomously replicating plasmid, which hijacks the phage infection process to preferentially package itself.

Jie-Liang Liang (South China Normal University) and colleagues published a new paper on diversity and ecological function of phosphorus acquisition genes in phages. Their work points to an underestimated role of phages in biogeochemical phosphorus cycling.

Carlos Martinez-Soto (Guelph Research and Development Centre, Canada) and colleagues have developed and thoroughly described a new multireceptor phage cocktail against Salmonella enterica to circumvent phage resistance. The cocktail targets four receptors: O-antigen, BtuB, OmpC, and rough Salmonella strains, is effective in vitro against 66 strains from 20 serovars, and works in vivo in chickens.

Wei Liu and (Tsinghua University) and colleagues have shown that phage communities contribute to antibiotic resistance genes in sludge plants.

James Bull (University of Idaho) and colleagues published a new paper exploring how best to control phage recombination when mathematically modelling co-infection.

Baylor College of Medicine researchers Anthony Maresso and Michael Tisza, have won the 2024 STAT Madness competition for their groundbreaking work on using wastewater monitoring as an early-warning system for disease outbreaks, demonstrating the detection of over 450 disease-causing viruses in public wastewater.

Wilfried Moreira is serving as Guest Editor for a new Special Issue on "Bacteriophage Biology and Phage-Derived Technologies" in the open access journal International Journal of Molecular Sciences, with a submission deadline of August 31, 2024.

Big news! After years in the making, the European Pharmacopoeia Commission has adopted a new general chapter on ‘phage therapy medicinal products’, providing a framework of requirements for their production and control, in an effort to standardize requirements for phage therapy.

An anonymous donation to the University of Toronto has led to a grant call of up to 1.5 million Canadian dollars for phage therapy research, with letters of interest due on April 19th. There are options for $200,000 and $50,000 allocations. Primary applicants are required to have an academic appointment in Canada, and international collaborations are encouraged.

For 6 decades, it has been a mystery how ssDNA phages use their ‘maturation’ (Mat) protein (1 of 4 proteins encoded by the phage, known to be involved in plus recognition) to enter the host cell. Jirapat Thongchol (Texas A&M University) and colleagues have now shown that ssRNA phage PP7 binds to type IV pilus via Mat, and as the pilus retracts, the phage physically causes the pilus to bend and snap off.

Maik Wolfram-Schauerte (Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology) and colleagues published a preprint revealing that T4 phage RNA is NAD-capped, and alters the NAD-cap epitranscriptome of E. coli during infection through a phage-encoded decapping enzyme. This study introduces epitranscriptomics as a new field in phage research.

Siva Uppalapati (University of Colorado School of Medicine) and colleagues discovered that a Salmonella prophage terminase is redox sensitive — it unexpectedly switches into acting as a tRNAse under oxidative stress, arresting host translation and giving the host an opportunity for genome repair.

WHO Europe in collaboration with the Global AMR R&D Hub is hosting a webinar called ‘Towards building the evidence for broader use of bacteriophages from an AMR One Health perspective’ on April 18. This 1st webinar in a series of 3 will focus on opportunities and challenges facing application of phages for human health.

IDWeek 2024 (Oct 16-19, Los Angeles) is now accepting applications for their Pipeline Sessions and BugHub Stages, inviting companies and researchers to submit novel antimicrobial agents or diagnostic technologies for a chance to present at the conference. Applications are due June 26.

The LuxO-OpaR quorum-sensing cascade differentially controls Vibriophage VP882 lysis-lysogeny decision making in liquid and on surfaces, according to a new preprint by Francis Santoriello and Bonnie Bassler at Princeton University.

Phages avoid autoimmunity from cognate immune systems as an intrinsic part of their life cycles, according to a new paper by Jakob Rostøl (Imperial College London) and colleagues.

Phage banks are fragmented, and it’s time to unify them, according to a new review led by Gregory Resch (University of Lausanne) and including authors from Felix d’Herelle Center and DSMZ, two major phage repositories.

Phage-based technologies in the African AgriFood sector have major potential, according to a new report by Innovate UK as part of AgriFood Africa Connect.

Want a quick visual on global prevalence of Pseudomonas resistance to fluroquinolones? Or E. coli resistance to colistins? ResistanceMap is a new interactive visualization tool for looking at AMR around the world, created by One Health Trust.

Aaryan Harshith (Stanford University) has just launched PhageBase, a dedicated phage TEM image database. There are already quite a few phages on there; feel free to upload your own! He wrote a blog introducing it here.

Phage researchers are invited to save the date for the 2024 International Soil Virus Conference in Livermore, California, USA, from June 25 to June 27, focusing on exploring the multifaceted roles of soil viruses within a One Health framework and featuring speakers such as Dr. Kurt Williamson and Dr. Uri Neri. Contact organizer Gary Trubl for more info.

New phage textbook edition alert! Tristan Ferry, an ID physician in Lyon, announced the release of the second edition of "Bacteriophage Therapy; From Lab to Clinical Practice.". The book, edited by Sanna Sillankorva and Joana Azeredo, covers advanced experimental and clinical phage therapy methods.

NexaBiome (previously FixedPhage) has partnered with JAFRAL to ramp up development (a hundredfold increase!) of their industrial-scale production of immobilized phage. This is part of NexaBiome's strategy to expand deeper into the human health sector.

Danica Schmidtke (Stanford University) and colleagues published a new preprint on how the prototypic crAssphage demonstrates a phage-plasmid lifestyle, persisting extrachromosomally without integrating into the host’s chromosome.

Fan Yang (University of Texas, Tyler School of Medicine) and colleagues published a new paper on phage therapy for the treatment of M. tuberculosis infections in humanized mice. They saw that mice infected with aerosolized TB then treated with DS6A phage intravenously showed increased body weight and improved pulmonary function relative to control mice.

Ruo Han Wang (City University of Hong Kong) and colleagues published a paper on PhageScope: a new online phage database with comprehensive annotations comprising 873,718 phage sequences. It provides annotations on genome completeness, host range, lifestyle, taxonomy, and more, and also incorporates automatic analyses and visualizations.

Paul Turner (Yale University) and colleagues have written a new review on gaps in modern phage therapy R&D. It includes some fun exploration of how AI & synbio could ease phage therapy logistics, a walkthrough of how and why new funding & regulatory models would help, an overview of how local phage centers and small biotechs are pushing phage therapy forward in the absence of large pharma, and more. Great read!

The International Society of Viruses of Microorganisms (ISVM) is calling for applications to organize the Viruses of Microbes (VoM) 2026 conference.

Interested ISVM members should submit their applications by April 30, 2024, to board@isvm.org.

The selection process includes a review and presentation at VoM 2024 in Cairns, Australia. Organizing VoM is rewarding but demands strong teamwork and planning.

Only 4 months remain until the Viruses of Microbes 2024 Meeting takes place (July 15-19, 2024). Phage researchers are encouraged to confirm their participation early to plan for the trip down under!

The International Society of Microbiota will host their 11th Annual Meeting, Targeting Microbiota, on October 17-18 at the Corinthia Palace Malta, to explore the role of microbiota in health and disease, advancements in microbiome medicine, and the clinical applications of phage therapy, among other topics.

Cytophage partnered with Dr. Marisa Azad at The Ottawa Hospital to deliver the first phage therapy in Canada for a patient with a severe hardware-associated joint infection. The phage treatment was produced by Cytophage, targeted Staphylococcus epidermidis, was delivered through an N of 1 clinical trial, and was approved by Health Canada and The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.

Intralytix has received Safe Quality Food (SQF) certification for food manufacturing, becoming the only phage company to attain such recognition.

Pramalkumar Patel (University of Toronto) and colleagues uncovered a novel anti-phage defence mechanism, where the P. aeruginosa prophage protein Tab blocks phage tail assembly, preventing formation of infectious virions.

Ryan Cook (Quadram Institute) and colleagues published a paper on benchmarking viromics using Illumina, Nanopore and PacBio. They constructed a mock phage community and used it to compare effectiveness of different sequencing technologies. The overall winning approach was Illumina combined with Nanopore (and if using a single technology: Illumina).

Jose L Figueroa (North Carolina Research Center) and colleagues published a new tool, MetaCerberus, a massively parallel, fast, low memory, scalable annotation tool for gene function inference across the tree of life (including phages!). The tool integrates multiple databases such as KEGG/KO, PHROGs, and CAZy, with plans to include more in future updates.

Wondering how phage therapy startups raise money? PhageLab recently raised $11M, and this ‘pitch deck teardown’ blog post goes through the pitch deck they used to convince investors, which slides pack the most punch, and other tips.

The International Society of Viruses of Microorganisms (ISVM) is calling for applications to organize the Viruses of Microbes (VoM) 2026 conference.

Interested ISVM members should submit their applications by April 30, 2024, to board@isvm.org.

The selection process includes a review and presentation at VoM 2024 in Cairns, Australia. Organizing VoM is rewarding but demands strong teamwork and planning.

The 2nd Symposium of the Belgian Society for Viruses of Microbes (BSVoM) was held on September 8, 2023, at the University of Liège, featuring over 140 researchers from 10 countries discussing phage ecology, diversity, and applications.

The event also launched the "Phage Valley" initiative, promoting Belgium's collaborative phage research ecosystem.

Summary of the symposium

The BV-BRC Viral Sub-species Classification Workshop, funded by NIAID, will be held in Rockville, MD from April 8-10, 2024.

This hybrid event, in collaboration with the CDC and NCBI, aims to establish best practices for viral sub-species classification.

The workshop will review current classification schemes and methodologies, fostering a collaborative approach to future pandemic preparedness.

Precisio Biotix Therapeutics has acquired London-based CC Bio. This gives Precisio access to CC Bio's ZEUS lysin platform, a bioinformatics platform highly complementary to Precisio's high-throughput screening, engineering, and AI system for creating novel lysins.

PrecisionPhage, a new startup based in Finland, has launched Phagenomics, a browser-based tool for phage genome analysis to streamline assembly and annotation for researchers and clinicians.

Milan Gerovac (University of Würzburg) and colleagues published a new paper revealing how phage-encoded proteins, particularly from jumbo phage ΦKZ, target and co-opt P. aeruginosa ribosomes immediately after infection. They make the case that phage genomes represent an untapped discovery space for proteins that modulate bacterial gene expression machinery.

The CDC has launched an Antimicrobial Resistance Investment Map (interestingly, they are calling it ‘AR’ now — is this our new acronym for AMR?). The map illustrates the allocation of CDC funds in the US and abroad. Explore funding landscape & download data | Get info on funding opportunities

The ADVANcing Clinical Evidence in Infectious Diseases (ADVANCE-ID) Network is offering funding for Phase II or III clinical trials focusing on antimicrobial agents for multi-resistant Gram-negative bacilli infections. Application deadline is March 15.

In a recent podcast episode of This Week in Virology (TWiV), learn how a viral capsid protein activates a bacterial innate immune system, interfering with protein synthesis, and human-associated redondoviruses that infect the commensal protozoan Entamoeba gingivalis. Hosted by Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, Rich Condit, Kathy Spindler, and Jolene Ramsey.

In another recent TWiV episode, learn how mammalian cells internalize and utilize phage particles to enhance cell growth and survival.

BiomX and Adaptive Phage Therapeutics have announced they will merge! They concurrently announce new financing of $50 million, which will help advance the combined company’s two Phase 2 assets: one for CF and one for diabetic foot ulcers.

Armata Pharmaceuticals has announced a $35 million credit agreement with its largest shareholder, Innoviva.

The UK government has responded to the Science, Innovation, and Technology Committee's report on the antimicrobial potential of phages, outlining recommendations for assessing the safety and effectiveness of phages in healthcare settings.

Owen Tuck and colleagues have discovered the Hachiman defense system, a broad-spectrum antiphage defense system, activates in response to DNA damage, creating 'phantom' cells devoid of both phage and host DNA. Preprint | Tweet thread

Attention phage researchers! The Felix d'Herelle Center is calling for deposits of characterized phages to ensure permanent archiving and prevent loss when research projects end. Have you considered depositing your lab's collection?

This week on PhageCast, the team talked to Paul Turner about how his lab is predicting the trade-offs of bacterial resistance to phage, to achieve killing by reversing the antibiotic resistance. They also covered how these findings are translated from in vitro to in vivo, and he also gave really inspiring advice for the people in the field.