a narrow range of bacteria, limiting their therapeutic utility. To reach the clinic, Felix is developing phage to kill a larger range of bacteria, which necessitates a significant quantity of information on phage-bacteria interactions. Felix will build new techniques to expedite the collection of this vital phage-bacteria interaction data with the help of this SBIR funding.
UCSF professor Adam Abate, a globally renowned microfluidics expert and partner on this project, expressed delight over the new initiative. He said, “We are excited to apply the high throughput tools that have been developed in the microfluidics space to address the constraints that limit phage data collection”. Professor Abate added, “With microfluidics, we can generate the large amounts of data needed to leverage the power of machine learning approaches to identify how to engineer viruses to kill a broader range of bacteria.”
Rob McBride, co-founder of Felix, explained the phage therapy. He said, “Phage therapy has been around for a long time but has not reached its potential due to the narrow host ranges of most therapeutic phages. The tools being developed in this grant will allow us to overcome this key technical limitation and develop generalizable phage therapy to effectively treat antimicrobial resistant infections and save lives”.
As the rate of lethal antimicrobial infections rises worldwide, Felix continues to be at the forefront of global efforts to develop innovative and effective treatments. Felix also expressed gratitude to the NIH and other investors for their tremendous support and efforts to improve the future of world health.
