Monday 2 October, 6pm - Dr Diana Fusco, Assitant Professor, Dept of Physics, Cambridge
Crispr-trapping bacteriophages to shine the light on phage-bacteria interactions at single-cell resolution.
Despite the long history and wide-spread use of bacteriophage-derived molecular biology tools in molecular biology and microbiology, the level and importance of stochasticityin the infection timeline is poorly understood, as most standard methods rely on bulk, population average measurements. By combining the Crispr approach to genetically edit T7 phages and introduce fluorescent markers and mother-machine microfluidic devises, we are finally visualizing the different events in the phage infection timeline and uncovering new mysteries in phage biology.
During the talk, I'll explain the details of how we use Crispr to edit the phage genome, the current challenges with the technique, and also some unexpected new findings that we would have never guessed before.