Phage Research Lab
by Belinda Loh
Phage Discovery
&
our Phage Bank
Phages are the most abundant organisms in the world. We exploit this vast number and search for them in the environment.
Discovery
Looking for something?
Looking for phages is not the easiest task but it is rewarding. We "hunt" for phages from the environment and we purify them to obtain single phage isolates.
Which bacteria do our phages target?
We currently target pathogens that are multi-drug resistant or that can aquire resistance easily, mainly Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii. We are expanding to Staphylococcus epidermidis and Enterococcus sp. However. the sky is the limit! Let us know what you are interested in!
Characterisation
What do you do with them?
Once we have isolated the phages, we work at getting to know them, like getting to know a new found friend.
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We have them imaged by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM),
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We test them against other bacteria to determine how many strains it can infect,
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We test them for thermostability or pH stability,
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We determine their genomic sequence.