Andrew Berti
Wayne State University, MI·Microbiology & Immunology
Staphylococcus aureus is the most common bacterium behind serious human infections, and treating it is getting harder: resistance to antibiotics is often present before therapy even starts, and up to 30% of infections fail to respond properly to first-line drugs even when lab tests say the bacteria are susceptible. One alternative under renewed consideration is therapy with bacteriophages, viruses that infect and kill bacteria, used alongside or after antibiotics.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Pharmacology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
Staphylococcus aureus
bacteriophage
phage therapy
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2028
What they work on
- Engineer a universal phage propagation strain of Staphylococcus aureus expressing methylation specificity proteins so that daughter phage DNA is tagged as "self" and bypasses the restriction-modification defenses that limit phage host range.
- Test whether phage grown in the enhanced propagation host infects a broader panel of clinical S. aureus isolates than the same phage grown conventionally, without permanent genetic change to the phage.
- Build into the propagation strain the capacity to make a phage capsid component fluorescent, producing transiently labeled daughter phage for pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic tracking in tissues.
- Modify the genome of Sb-1, a representative antistaphylococcal bacteriophage, to express a fluorescent capsid regardless of host strain, enabling study of phage amplification in situ and penetration into sequestered infectious foci.
More about the research
Two practical problems block wider use, and this project tackles both by re-engineering the bacterial strain used to grow the phage rather than the patient's treatment.
Why it matters
Multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections leave clinicians with few options, and phage therapy is currently limited by the slow custom matching of each phage to each patient's bacterial isolate. A propagation host that broadens phage host range could make a single phage preparation usable against many more strains, and fluorescent phage could answer basic dosing and tissue-penetration questions needed before phage therapy can be used reliably in patients.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Daniel J Wozniak
Ohio State University, OH·Microbiology & Immunology
Define how Psl, a secreted sugar polymer of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, suppresses Staphylococcus aureus growth and interacts with S. aureus protein A (SpA), using several complementary strategies.
Gauri Rao
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Pharmacology
Identify which pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) factors should guide phage selection against clinical Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates, using static time-kill assays and hollow fiber infection models.
Alexander Cole
University of Central Florida, FL·Microbiology & Immunology
Purify and identify the anti-Staphylococcus aureus proteins and polypeptides secreted by nasal Klebsiella isolates, starting from conditioned culture medium that can be prepared at large scale.
The school
Wayne State University: 21 labs on PI Pages, $292M a year on research, 194 research doctorates a year.
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