Phage Foundry Presents at the 2025 DOE BER BSSD PI Meeting

The Phage Foundry presented three posters and three short talks at the Department of Energy (DOE) Biological and Environmental Research Program (BER) Biological and Systems Science Division (BSSD) Annual PI Meeting (BSSD PI Meeting) held in Arlington, Virginia, on March 31 – April 2, 2025.

This annual meeting provides a venue for BSSD-supported PIs, colleagues, and associates to discuss successes and challenges, develop collaborations, learn more about the enabling capabilities and User Facilities available through the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and BER, and interact with DOE program staff.

Posters

Phage Foundry postdoctoral researcher Flavien Maucourt (LBNL, Mutalik Lab), presented a poster titled “The Phage Foundry, an interdisciplinary platform providing a multi-scale view of phage-host interactions.”

Left to right: Flavien Maucourt (postdoctoral researcher, LBNL, Mutalik Lab), Avery Noonan (postdoctoral researcher, LBNL, Arkin Lab), and Mark Mimee (co-I, UChicago), pictured in front of Maucourt’s poster, “The Phage Foundry, an interdisciplinary platform providing a multi-scale view of phage-host interactions,” at the BSSD PI Meeting.

Phage Foundry postdoctoral researcher Hemaa Selvakumar (LBNL, Mutalik Lab), presented a poster titled “Systematic Characterization of Phage-Host Interactions in pathogenic Enterobacteriaceae via High-Throughput Phenotyping, Structural Analysis, Phage Engineering, and Machine Learning.”

Hemaa Selvakumar (postdoctoral researcher, LBNL, Mutalik Lab) presents her poster titled “Systematic Characterization of Phage-Host Interactions in pathogenic Enterobacteriaceae via High-Throughput Phenotyping, Structural Analysis, Phage Engineering, and Machine Learning.”

Phage Foundry project scientist Denish Piya (LBNL, Mutalik Lab), presented a poster titled “Application of High-throughput Phenotyping and Machine Learning Approaches to Predict Pseudomonas Phage-host Interactions at Strain Level.”

Denish Piya (LBNL, Mutalik Lab), presents his poster titled “Application of High-throughput Phenotyping and Machine Learning Approaches to Predict Pseudomonas Phage-host Interactions at Strain Level.”

Short Talks

Phage Foundry PI Vivek Mutalik (LBNL), co-investigator Mark Mimee (UChicago), and postdoctoral research Avery Noonan (LBNL, Arkin Lab) presented short talks during Session G: Advancing Biopreparedness Capabilities Through Cross-disciplinary Synergies.

PI Vivek Mutalik (LBNL) opened the Phage Foundry presentations with an overview titled “BRaVE Phage Foundry, a systematic multi-scale characterization capability to develop countermeasures to combat multidrug resistant pathogens.”

PI Vivek Mutalik (LBNL) presents a talk titled “BRaVE Phage Foundry, a systematic multi-scale characterization capability to develop countermeasures to combat multidrug resistant pathogens.”

Co-investigator Mark Mimee (Uchicago) followed with a short talk titled “Engineering and Rapid Design of Bacteriophage Cocktails to Eliminate Multi-Drug Resistant Pathogens from Complex Microbial Communities.”

Co-investigator Mark Mimee (Uchicago) presents a talk titled “Engineering and Rapid Design of Bacteriophage Cocktails to Eliminate Multi-Drug Resistant Pathogens from Complex Microbial Communities.”

Postdoctoral researcher Avery Noonan (LBNL, Arkin Lab) rounded out the Phage Foundry presentations with a talk titled “High-Throughput Phenotyping and Machine Learning for Strain-Level Prediction of Phage-Host Interactions.”

Avery Noonan (LBNL, Arkin Lab) presents a talk titled “High-Throughput Phenotyping and Machine Learning for Strain-Level Prediction of Phage-Host Interactions.”

Thank you to our colleagues for representing the Phage Foundry at the BSSD PI Meeting!