Mycobacteriophages- Diversity, Dynamics & Therapy

Recorded On - 17 June, 2020, 9 am EDT Graham Hatfull is Eberly Family Professor of Biotechnology and HHMI Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Edinburgh University in 1981 and did postdoctoral work at Yale University with Dr. Nigel Grindley and at the Medical Research Council at Cambridge University, with Fred Sanger and Bart Barrell. Dr. Hatfull has published over 240 peer-reviewed articles, 40 book chapters or reviews, and co-edited four books. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a teaching fellow of the National Academy of Science and recently he has been elected as a member of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his outstanding contributions in science! Graham Hatfull’s research focuses on the molecular genetics of the mycobacteria and their bacteriophages. His work with students has served as an impressive model for the HHMI Science Education Alliance Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) program in the United States. The program introduces undergraduate students to authentic scientific research in a two-term course which has facilitated a phenomenal collection of over 15,000 phage isolates. This collection of phages led to the creation of a phage cocktail that was recently used to fight an antibiotic-resistant infection in a 15-year old lung transplant patient (Engineered bacteriophages for treatment of a patient with a disseminated drug-resistant Mycobacterium abscessus). It is the first example of phage therapy for a mycobacterial infection.