Bioprocessing of genetically engineered filamentous phages to underpin new therapeutic and industrial applications

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The extensive knowledge of phage (also known as bacteriophages and bacterial viruses) genetics and physiology acquired in the past 50 years makes them an attractive option for development of products for pharmaceutical, diagnostic and nanotechnological applications. Modified phages are showing promise in the battle to defeat infectious and genetic diseases. For example, it has been shown that HIV epitopes displayed on a filamentous phage can elicit T-cell and B-cell responses offering a novel approach for vaccine design for a disease that affects approximately 6 million world-wide. Modified phages can be synthesised in high titres in E. coli and in principle processed by techniques readily applicable to considerable scale-up. Until a recently resurgence of interest in phages as anti-microbial agents there has been little research concern with large-scale processing since a few early studies 30 years ago. For this reason modern biochemical engineering and molecular biology concepts have yet to be brought together to address the issues involved. The proposed study will examine these. As the crisis in antibiotic drug resistance by microorganisms continues to develop it is also possible that phages will have an antibiotic role. Though this is not the primary focus of this research, the biochemical engineering studies proposed will bear on to this related field.