Oral Presentation Australian Society for Microbiology Annual Scientific Meeting 2019

Phage therapy in the 21st Century: AMR, Phage & Synthetic Biology (#84)

Karen D Weynberg 1 2 , Mark Schembri 1 , Scott Beatson 1 , Brian Forde 1 , Tom Peat 2 , Carol Hartley 2 , Maciej Holowko 2
  1. University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
  2. Commonwealth Science Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Queensland, Australia

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been identified as an emerging global crisis for human health. Effective therapeutic antimicrobial alternatives are being sought to control and remove multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacterial pathogens. Phage therapy remains a much under-explored alternative to antibiotic use. Synthetic biology can enable the design, modification and synthesis of phages to help realise novel strategies to study and treat MDR pathogens that form biofilms. Our research uses synthetic biology to engineer natural phage isolates and construct synthetic phages to effectively target biofilms. Approximately 90% of urinary tract infections are caused by Uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) and result in a huge global health and economic burden. Furthermore, UPEC infections are increasingly showing resistance to antibiotic treatments. We present genomic sequence data on novel phage isolates that target UPEC and demonstrate how synthetic biology can enable engineering of these phages to influence host range specificity and other characteristics. State-of-the-art tools and emerging technologies, housed within an Australia-based BioFoundry, are being utilised to achieve high-throughput phage engineering and evolution, with the view to establishing a library of customised phages that target MDR pathogens within biofilms.