Toward Rational Remodeling of the Infant Gut Microbiota

Bryan Hsu from Harvard Medical School in the U.S. will develop a mouse model carrying specific bacteria to mimic conditions in the infant gut for studying bacteria-infecting viruses known as phage, which could be valuable agents for treating infectious diseases and promoting child health in developing countries. Understanding how phage behave within the complex human gut is a critical step towards developing phage-based therapeutics that can safely modify resident bacterial populations. They will create a computational model to predict the effects of selected combinations of phage on bacteria dynamics in the mice, and then evaluate a phage-based therapeutic for treating a pathogenic Escherichia coli infection.