Welcome to the lab!
We are interested in the ecological and evolutionary factors shaping bacteriophage genomes.
We use laboratory work and bioinformatics to understand how these parts influence the virus itself, their bacterial hosts, and the microbiomes they exist in.
We work by analyzing genomes in silico, synthesizing them in vitro, and generally dissecting and reassembling phages - specifically single-stranded DNA phages of the family Microviridae.
Currently, we are mostly focused on studying their interaction with bacterial hosts and competition with other phages, as well as exploring microvirus diversity in humans and elsewhere.
In the future, we hope to leverage knowledge gained from this research into building customized phages for phage therapy and ecosystem engineering.
News
News
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Hiring Postdoc! We are hiring a postdoctoral reserearcher to isolate and characterize microviruses of the human gut. Learn more here:...
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NIH funds our research Good news! The NIH Centers of Bioedical Research Excellence (COBRE) program is funding the Oklahoma Center for Microbiome Research, which includes our lab's project "Engineering host-determinants of...
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New paper - Microviruses: A World Beyond phiX174 Our new article is published in Annual Reviews of Virology covering microvirus diversity, biology and taxonomy. A beginner's primer for research into these tiny bacteriophages!
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2023 Molecular Genetics of Bacteria and Phages meeting in Wisconsin, Madison Mehraj and Paul travel to lovely Madison, Wisconsin.
