Rethinking Viruses

Graham Hatfull, Eberly Family Professor of Biotechnology, Department of Biological Sciences

For more than a decade, Hatfull has led students all over the world in identifying and naming new strains of bacteria-killing viruses known as phages. After amassing a freezer full of 15,000 phages and sequencing their genomes, his lab was presented with an unusual request: A teenage cystic fibrosis patient in London was on the verge of dying from a rare bacterial infection after a lung transplant. Was there a phage in the freezer that could attack the infection (see video below)? The lab analyzed the RNA sequences of three candidates and identified and altered two genes to make the phages express the aggressive characteristics needed to attack the bacteria. The patient improved greatly.

A paper published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases described how Hatfull’s team contributed to using the experimental phage treatment in 20 new cases of patients with infections by the mycobacterium bacteria that attack people with compromised immune systems or with cystic fibrosis. The phages killed the infection in 11 of the 20 patients. Now, more than 200 clinicians have sought him out, searching for phages that could be used to target unique strains of bacteria infecting individual patients. A large clinical trial of the phage therapy is expected.