PhageCast

How do you create a research environment where people feel safe to make mistakes? And how do you balance publishing pressure, scientific quality and mental health?

In this episode, we speak with Lone Brønsted, Professor at the University of Copenhagen, leader of the PHAGEBio research group and current president of the ISVM.

We cover her work on bacteriophages, phage–host interactions, and what it means to do excellent science.

We discuss in the episode the molecular mechanisms that determine how phages recognize their hosts, with a particular focus on receptor-binding proteins and the diversity of strategies phages use to identify and infect bacterial cells. We also talk about phage dark matter and the challenges of studying phages that remain poorly characterized.

We then discuss examples of her research involving important bacterial pathogens, including ESBL-producing E. coli and Salmonella, and why a strong fundamental understanding of phage biology is essential if we want to translate phage research into new applications.

A major part of the conversation moves beyond the science to explore what scientific excellence actually means. We discuss research culture, leadership, effective communication, responsibility, and how to create a safe environment where people can make mistakes, particularly during difficult periods.

We also talk about how to retain talented researchers, how to balance the pressure to publish with the need to produce high-quality science, and how to protect mental health throughout the process.

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Yang Shen, R&D Director at ACD Pharma in Norway, about the use of bacteriophages in aquaculture and the challenges of controlling bacterial diseases in fish farming.

We begin with an introduction to aquaculture, discussing how fish are produced, why bacterial infections are a major challenge, and how antibiotic use is regulated in this industry. Yang explains the most important pathogens affecting salmon production, including Yersinia ruckeri and Moritella viscosa, and how environmental factors such as biofilms and climate change influence disease outbreaks.

We then focus on Custus®YRS, the world's first commercial bacteriophage product for aquaculture, developed to control Yersinia ruckeri infections in salmon. We discuss how phages are delivered in aquaculture systems, the emergence of bacterial resistance, and the advantages and limitations of phage therapy compared with conventional antibiotics.

Finally, Yang shares his career journey from academia to industry, reflecting on the differences between both environments, what he looks for in young researchers, and his advice for PhD students and scientists in the phage world.

In this episode of Phage Bites, we speak with Luciana Meneses about her recent Nature Communications study on the directed evolution of phages in biofilms and how this approach can improve the control of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

We discuss how phages can adapt to the heterogeneous bacterial populations found within biofilms, the experimental evolution strategy used in the study, and how evolved phages achieved improved recognition of bacterial lipopolysaccharides. We also cover the methods used to characterize these adaptations.

A major focus of the conversation is the relevance of these findings for phage therapy. We discuss how bacterial populations within biofilms are far from uniform, why this heterogeneity can limit the efficacy of phage treatments, and how evolving phages under biofilm conditions may generate variants better suited to target clinically relevant bacterial subpopulations.

We also explore the broader implications of using experimental evolution as a strategy to improve phage performance against chronic biofilm-associated infections.

Finally, Luciana shares her experience as a PhD student in the Azeredo Lab, reflects on the challenges and rewarding aspects of the project, and offers advice for students and young researchers interested in the field of phage biology.

Do not forget that Viruses of Microbes is still accepting inscriptions and will take place in Prague from 6-10 July 2026.

In this episode, we speak with Prof. Jeremy Barr, Professor at Monash University, about his work on bacteriophages in the human gut and the ecological and functional roles of temperate phages within the microbiome.

We discuss his recent study Isolation, engineering and ecology of temperate phages from the human gut, focusing on prophages in gut bacteria and how frequently they may enter the lytic cycle.

We cover the experimental approaches used to isolate and characterize temperate phages from gut bacteria, including induction, bacterial and human cells. We speak about environmental factors that may influence prophage induction, including dietary compounds, and how epithelial perturbation during inflammation can shape gut virome dynamics.

We then explore evolutionary and genomic aspects of gut temperate phages, including the presence of prophages lacking integrases, the role of diversity-generating retroelements (DGRs), and possible evolutionary trajectories toward prophage domestication. We also discuss polylysogeny and whether temperate phages may serve as stable platforms for gene delivery in microbiome-associated contexts.

Finally, Jeremy shares reflections on the process of publishing the study in Nature, including how the manuscript evolved during peer review, and lessons learned during the revision process.

Do not forget that Viruses of Microbes is still accepting inscriptions and will take place in Prague from 6-10 July 2026.

In this episode, we speak with Luisa de Sordi, Associate Professor at Sorbonne University ain France, about her work on bacteriophages in the gut and their role in Crohn’s disease.

We discuss her recent Cell Reports study examining whether bacteriophages can cross the intestinal barrier and enter the bloodstream, and how this process differs between healthy individuals and patients with Crohn’s disease. The study shows that certain phages translocate at higher levels in Crohn’s patients. We also cover the experimental approach used to track phages across epithelial layers, including fluorescent labeling and other methods and questions they answered!

We then turn to her recent work in Gastroenterology, where her team analyzed the blood virome in Crohn’s disease.

We also asked some personal questions and got some valuable advice! Stay till the end if you want to hear it!

In today’s episode of Phagecast, we interview Célia Pas from ACD Pharma, to dive into the world of tailocins and how they can be engineered as highly specific antibacterial tools, work that she carried out as PhD student in Yves Briers lab.

We start with an introduction to Célia and her research environment, before moving into a detailed discussion of her recent work using a VersaTile engineering approach to reprogram the specificity of R2-type tailocins.

Throughout the episode, we cover:

What tailocins are, how they differ from phages and endolysins...

Why targetting Gram-negative pathogens like E. coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae.

What the VersaTile technique is, how it works, and why it offers a flexible and powerful platform for engineering tailocin specificity... and much more!

We close the episode with Célia’s personal experience as a PhD student, discussing the challenges of this work, what she is most proud of, and her transition toward industry—along with practical advice for early-career researchers considering similar paths.

Today we interview Carmen Chen, MSCA PhD student in the University of Finland and Humanitas University in Milan, she tells us about her last publication "Antibiotic-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii can be killed by a combination of bacteriophages and complement", where we discuss how bacteriophages interact with the human complement system to kill antibiotic-resistant A. baumannii.

We hear about the key experiments and findings of the study, including serum/phage preconditioning, the role of capsular and phase variation in clinical strains, and how these factors influence phage susceptibility, among others!

Stay till the end if you want to hear about Carmens´ experience as a PhD student, what was most challenging and other insights from the chat!

If you want to participate contact us through any of our platforms and we will be happy to have a chat with you!

In this episode, we talk with Professor Martha Clokie, Professor at the University of Leicester and Director of the new Becky Mayer Centre for Phage Research. She explains her work leading the Centre and its mission under a One Health framework.

We discuss why phage applications in animals—such as poultry —often progress faster than in humans, the regulatory path for veterinary products and the current status of phage therapy in the UK, what recent conversations with regulators have clarified, whether any patients have been treated, and how close the country is to seeing approved phage products.

She then dives into her research on Clostridioides difficile, explaining why no strictly lytic phages have been identified to date, how endolysins fit into the picture, and the possible role of phages in the success of FMT therapies.

Martha closes with insights from her career and advice for early-stage researchers entering the phage field.

PhageCast 2025 is sponsored by PrecisionPhage:

⁠www.precisionphage.com

⁠⁠www.phagenomics.net⁠

Contact PrecisionPhage on LinkedIn! 

PrecisionPhage is a Finland-based phage biotech, providing services worldwide:

 🔹phage laboratory R&D services such as on-demand phage isolation

 🔹licensing of bacteriophages against WHO priority pathogens

 🔹ready-to-use and custom-made bioinformatics software for phage and host genome analysis. 

Are you new to phage genome assembly and functional analysis, and would you like to be able to get them done using the latest methods but without the burden of coding or manual work? 

PrecisionPhage welcomes you to get familiar with Phagenomics!

Phagenomics is a web-based software providing automated phage genome assembly, annotation & analysis, as well as comparative genomics. The tool bundles phage bioinformatics in a user-friendly online platform, performing the work of a seasoned phage bioinformatician in an automated manner.

Phagenomics is developed in-house by PrecisionPhage. 

Try Phagenomics for free at ⁠www.phagenomics.net⁠ and sign up for a pro subscription trial.

In this episode, we talk with Matti Jalasvuori, CEO and co-founder of PrecisionPhage, a Finland-based biotech advancing bioinformatics to make phage research more practical and scalable.

Matti explains his daily work leading the company, staying close to the science while guiding development of new tools that make phage data easier to use for researchers and industry. He shares how PrecisionPhage began – from early genome analysis in his academic group to developing Phagenomics software, platforms that automate phagegenome assembly & annotation and qualitycontrol. Matti discusses how such tools can meet strict requirements for future GMP-level phage production and help address the long-standing challenge of phage “dark matter”, where many phage genes still have unknown functions. Beyond the technical side, Matti reflects on the process of starting a company, lessons from hisresearch on the origins of viruses, and what it means to bridge science and business. He closes with thoughtful advice for young scientists: stay curious, understand biology deeply, and choose which ideas are truly worth developing.

In today’s episode we interview Rafael Pinilla-Redondo, Group Leader of the Bacterial Immunity research group at the Section of Microbiology, University of Copenhagen.

We start the conversation with an overview of his research, he tells us how his team looks into the interplay between phages and bacterial defense systems.

We also talk about the different approaches to uncover and characterize bacterial immunity, from bioinformatic predictions to experimental phage–bacteria interactions, insights into CRISPR-Cas systems—particularly Type IV CRISPRs, CRISPRi systems and their counter-defenses like RNA-based anti-CRISPRs.

The current big questions in bacterial immunity and what impacts this research could have on biotechnology and translational applications.

Finally, Rafael shares his personal journey into the phage field, what excites him most about current research, his reflections on setbacks that turned into opportunities, and his advice for PhD students and early-career researchers.

PhageCast 2025 is sponsored by PrecisionPhage:

⁠www.precisionphage.com

⁠⁠www.phagenomics.net⁠

Contact PrecisionPhage on LinkedIn! 

PrecisionPhage is a Finland-based phage biotech, providing services worldwide:

 🔹phage laboratory R&D services such as on-demand phage isolation

 🔹licensing of bacteriophages against WHO priority pathogens

 🔹ready-to-use and custom-made bioinformatics software for phage and host genome analysis. 

Are you new to phage genome assembly and functional analysis, and would you like to be able to get them done using the latest methods but without the burden of coding or manual work? 

PrecisionPhage welcomes you to get familiar with Phagenomics!

Phagenomics is a web-based software providing automated phage genome assembly, annotation & analysis, as well as comparative genomics. The tool bundles phage bioinformatics in a user-friendly online platform, performing the work of a seasoned phage bioinformatician in an automated manner.

Phagenomics is developed in-house by PrecisionPhage. 

Try Phagenomics for free at ⁠www.phagenomics.net⁠ and sign up for a pro subscription trial.