Category: Relevant External News
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Barcoding Bacteriophages: New Method Could Unleash Powerful Biotechnology Applications
“A team led by Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology (EGSB) staff scientist Vivek Mutalik demonstrated for the first time that they can, on a genome-wide scale, identify phage genes that are essential (or not) to infecting bacteria, and then replace non-essential DNA with distinctive barcode tags. These barcodes could enable investigators and clinicians to quickly…
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Berkeley Lab Launches Research Projects to Support National Biopreparedness and Response Efforts
“Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are launching three research projects as part of DOE’s Biopreparedness Research Virtual Environment (BRaVE) initiative, which supports national biopreparedness and response capabilities that can be advanced with DOE’s distinctive capabilities.”
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iPHoP: A Matchmaker for Phages and their Hosts
To understand virus-host dynamics, computation helps fill in what cultivation can’t. Roux, S. et al. “iPHoP: An integrated machine learning framework to maximize host prediction for metagenome-derived viruses of archaea and bacteria.” PloS Biology 21(4): e3002083 (2023). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002083
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Phage therapy: From biological mechanisms to future directions
Summary Increasing antimicrobial resistance rates have revitalized bacteriophage (phage) research, the natural predators of bacteria discovered over 100 years ago. In order to use phages therapeutically, they should (1) preferably be lytic, (2) kill the bacterial host efficiently, and (3) be fully characterized to exclude side effects. Developing therapeutic phages takes a coordinated effort of…
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A Better Way to Find RNA Virus Needles in the Proverbial Database Haystacks
Team develops a computational pipeline to sift and characterize RNA virus sequences. Neri U, Wolf Y, Roux S et al. Expansion of the global RNA virome reveals diverse clades of bacteriophages. Cell. 2022 Sept 28. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.08.023
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A Phage Foundry Framework to Systematically Develop Viral Countermeasures to Combat Antibiotic-Resistant Bacterial Pathogens
Summary At its current rate, the rise of antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) infections is predicted to paralyze our industries and healthcare facilities while becoming the leading global cause of loss of human life. With limited new antibiotics on the horizon, we need to invest in alternative solutions. Bacteriophages (phages)—viruses targeting bacteria—offer a powerful alternative approach to tackle…