Therapeutic Phage Cocktails

Engineered viruses and phages capable of targeting pathogenic bacterium

Pathogenic bacteria have been gradually developing resistance to known antibiotics, which could thwart the effort of preventing catastrophic bacterial outbreak infections. To control this resistance, certain phages have been evolved to infect each problematic bacterial group. Use of multi-phage cocktails can ensure that no target pathogen cell can escape through development of resistance to any one phage. Sandia researchers have developed bioinformatic algorithms, namely Islander and Comparator/TIGER, that can detect large numbers of phages/viruses integrated silently into bacterial genomes. Both these tools provide precise genomic mapping which allows high retrieval of effective phages/viruses through the unbiased Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) search of DNA integrases from the close relatives of targeted bacteria genome. It also includes the ability to prevent phage genome integration into the targeted bacteria genome, yet allows the phage to kill bacteria upon infection due to the genetic deletion of the integrase genes. The generation of diverse phages to combine into a cocktail can effectively eliminate those bacteria.

Features & Technical Benefits

• Unique approach to target pathogenic bacteria
• Computer-generated models can detect large numbers of bacterial eliminating agents (phages)
• Multi-step strategies to mitigate the risk of bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics
• Development of phages for therapeutic use

Industries & Applications

• Bioscience Research Facilities
• Pharmaceutical Industries
• Academic/Medical Research Facilities
• National Health Organizations
• National Security

Technical Figures