Engineering recombinant bacteriophages as multi - tools against intracellular bacterial infections

Bacteriophages are viruses with great specificity for infecting their bacterial hosts, allowing their use as targeted antibacterial agents. Current advances in synthetic biology have enabled the genetic engineering of bacteriophages for a broad range of applications.
In this project, we propose to genetically engineer bacteriophage to efficiently enter into human cells to allow for phage-mediated killing of difficult to treat intracellular Escherichia coli K1 infection. A combination of genetics, microbiology, phage biology, synthetic biology, human cell biology and microscopy methods, will enable us to reach the objectives of the project.