Speaker: Professor Martha Clokie, Professor of Microbiology, University of Leicester, will present seminar entitled : Roles of phages in human diseases

Host: Simon Carding

Abstract:

Bacteriophages are extremely abundant in most environments including the human microbiome where they outnumber their hosts in a ratio of about 10:1.

They shape and manipulate the ecology of the environment in which they are found. both by encoding specific genes that express proteins which change the physiology of their host bacteria, and by shaping population dynamics by selectively killing specific populations of bacteria.  Classical 16S barcoding of bacteria associated with disease clearly doesn’t detect bacteriophages and yet phages may have important roles in exacerbating disease symptoms and persistence.

To address this lack of knowledge, my lab has developed methods to characterize bacteriophages associated with human diseases.  In this talk I will review the roles of bacteriophages associated with gut and respiratory diseases with a focus on the research in my laboratory on Clostridium difficile and on COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease).

Further information: https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/iii/people/dr-martha-clokie

All staff from organisations on the Research Park are welcome to attend.