For more than a decade, Hatfull has led students all over the world in identifying and naming new strains of bacteria-killing viruses known as phages. After amassing a freezer full of 15,000 phages and sequencing their genomes, his lab was presented with an unusual request: A teenage cystic fibrosis patient in London was on the verge of dying from a rare bacterial infection after a lung transplant.
Was there a phage in the freezer that could attack the infection? The lab analyzed the RNA sequences of three candidates and identified and altered two genes to make the phages express the aggressive characteristics needed to attack the bacteria. The patient improved greatly.