Metapopulation model of phage therapy of an acute lung infection.

Unlabelled: Infections caused by multidrug resistant (MDR) pathogenic bacteria are a global health threat. Bacteriophages ("phage") are increasingly used as alternative or last-resort therapeutics to treat patients infected by MDR bacteria. However, the therapeutic outcomes of phage therapy may be limited by the emergence of phage resistance during treatment and/or by physical constraints that impede phage-bacteria interactions .

Disentangling top-down drivers of mortality underlying diel population dynamics of Prochlorococcus in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.

Photosynthesis fuels primary production at the base of marine food webs. Yet, in many surface ocean ecosystems, diel-driven primary production is tightly coupled to daily loss. This tight coupling raises the question: which top-down drivers predominate in maintaining persistently stable picocyanobacterial populations over longer time scales? Motivated by high-frequency surface water measurements taken in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG), we developed multitrophic models to investigate bottom-up and top-down mechanisms underlying the balanced control of Prochlorococcus populations.

Metapopulation model of phage therapy of an acute lung infection.

Infections caused by multi-drug resistant (MDR) pathogenic bacteria are a global health threat. Phage therapy, which uses phage to kill bacterial pathogens, is increasingly used to treat patients infected by MDR bacteria. However, the therapeutic outcome of phage therapy may be limited by the emergence of phage resistance during treatment and/or by physical constraints that impede phage-bacteria interactions .

Macrophage-induced reduction of bacteriophage density limits the efficacy of pulmonary phage therapy.

The rise of antimicrobial resistance has led to renewed interest in evaluating phage therapy. In murine models highly effective treatment of acute pneumonia caused by relies on the synergistic antibacterial activity of bacteriophages with neutrophils. Here, we show that depletion of alveolar macrophages (AM) shortens the survival of mice without boosting the .

Complex marine microbial communities partition metabolism of scarce resources over the diel cycle.

Complex assemblages of microbes in the surface ocean are responsible for approximately half of global carbon fixation. The persistence of high taxonomic diversity despite competition for a small suite of relatively homogeneously distributed nutrients, that is, 'the paradox of the plankton', represents a long-standing challenge for ecological theory. Here we find evidence consistent with temporal niche partitioning of nitrogen assimilation processes over a diel cycle in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.

Quantitative Models of Phage-Antibiotic Combination Therapy.

The spread of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria is a global public health crisis. Bacteriophage therapy (or "phage therapy") constitutes a potential alternative approach to treat MDR infections. However, the effective use of phage therapy may be limited when phage-resistant bacterial mutants evolve and proliferate during treatment.