Combining Phages with CRISPR for Ecological Vaccination

Kevin Esvelt of President and Fellows of Harvard College in the U.S. will use CRISPR technology to make protective healthy bacteria resistant to phage so they can outcompete pathogenic bacteria that cause childhood diarrhea and stunting. He will develop a method to make the protective Nissle 1917 strain of E. coli resistant to a range of phage, and use it to replace native E. coli strains in the guts of young mice as a model for human infants. This approach will provide long-term protection against pathogenic bacterial infections at low cost.