Developing a national capacity for adjunctive phage therapy to treat antibiotic-resistant respiratory infections through Citizen Science. (Ref: 4214)

Phage therapy represents the next generation of targeted antimicrobials to counter the antimicrobial resistance threat. This is the application of phages, the natural predators of bacteria, that are readily isolatable from the environment and possess lytic activity against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Despite increasing interest in phage therapy from the UK Government, clinicians, and the public, there remains limited detail in a roadmap toward successful phage therapy adjunctive to antibiotics in the UK. In collaboration with colleagues at the University of Cardiff, the student will leverage high throughput screening methods, citizen science, and molecular techniques to develop guidelines as to how phage therapy should proceed in the UK, with a particular focus on pathogens associated with respiratory disease, namely Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Burkholderia cepacia

They will also use informatic analysis alongside classical phage techniques to assess host range, propose novel methods of cocktail optimisation, and develop procedures for developing workable short-term and long-term strategies for phage therapy in the UK.