IBADAN BACTERIOPHAGE RESEARCH TEAM

Ibadan Bacteriophage Research Team

The Ibadan Bacteriophage Research Team is an undergraduate research organization based at Nigeria's premier university, the University of Ibadan. The team was founded in the year 2018 by a team of 8 Faculty members led by Prof. O.G Ademowo, after the successful registration of the department of Biomedical Laboratory Science of the university for the SEAPHAGES project in collaboration with the Hughes Howard Medical Institute and University of Pittsburg. Today, the team prides itself on being the most successful undergraduate research organization at the University of Ibadan and in sub-Saharan Africa, with a vibrant early-career research community sustained by active faculty mentorship. The team has grown to become a force to be reckoned with in the field of bacteriophage biology and antimicrobial resistance, with numerous international collaborations and research engagements.

Our Mission

Ibadan Bacteriophage Research Team has the mission to build an undergraduate research community of early career researchers who are enthusiastic about bacteriophage biology and its prospective use as alternative antimicrobial therapy. In accordance with the vision of the SEAPHAGES project, the team undertakes bacteriophage exploration through the collection of environmental samples and computational characterization of bacteriophage genomes. The team is focused on teaching all of its members the use of bioinformatic approaches to microbial genome studies and actively engaging the local and international community in her work through scientific review articles, IBRT Phamilia Journal, conference presentations, hosting the annual IBRT World Phage Week Webinar, and advocacy through active social media engagement. The team extends her reach outside her host department through collaborative projects such as the Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences Research and the Ibadan Enterovirus Project.

World Phage Week Webinar Series 2022

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On the 28th and 29th of October, the Ibadan Bacteriophage Research Team will be hosting the 3rd World Phage Week Webinar Series! For 2022, the event will entertain discussions ranging from Early-Career phage research engagement to how Phage Biobanks can facilitate Clinical Use Therapy.

PHAMILIA JOURNAL

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December 2022: The Ibadan Bacteriophage Research Team, an undergraduate SEA-PHAGES team at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, announces the launch of the 2nd edition of the team’s journal issue, PHAMILIA. This is the very first undergraduate research journal focused on bacteriophage biology. It also showcases all student and faculty team members of the team, as well as publications on diverse subjects of bacteriophage biology, from the team and other guest writers.

The first Undergraduate Bacteriophage Research Journal in Africa

Click below to download Phamilia Issue #002:

PHAMILIA_2.0_JOURNAL.pdf

World Phage Week Webinar Series 2022

Meet Our 2022 WPW Speakers

Professor Martha R.J. Clokie

Martha R.J. Clokie, Ph.D., Professor of Microbiology, University of Leicester, UK.

I am an internationally renowned expert in bacteriophage biology with over 100 published papers. Over the last 15 years, I have pioneered studies on developing phages for therapeutic purposes in humans and animals. I have a track record of carrying out the fundamental science needed to use phages in applied settings, as evidenced by my work on human-associated Clostridium difficile and Salmonella associated with pigs. Much of my work uses genomic and structural approaches to identify key traits associated with phage efficacy to clear infection. My work also incorporates studying phage-bacterial interactions in physiologically relevant models and in animal trials. My recent publications led to two recent British Research Council awards to design phage products for use in livestock. I have had projects funded directly by industry (Enbiotix's funded C. difficile phage therapeutic program) and others with close industry collaborations (e.g., ABagri on phages for use in poultry). I developed and regularly run a course to teach phage biology to African academics, as part of a Gates funded ‘Phages for Global Health’ Yale-Leicester collaboration. All of my applied work is routed in fundamental biology, and my early phage research was focused on understanding how ocean bacteriophages controlled their marine bacterial hosts. My work paved the way for a new research field that is still very active, that of determining the complex ways that phages interact with their bacterial hosts.

Dr. Temitope Faleye, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Environmental Health Engineering, Arizona State University, USA | Faculty Member, Ibadan Bacteriophage Research Team (IBRT)

Dr. Faleye has a PhD in Virology from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He is currently a post-doctoral fellow at Arizona State University, where his research is focused on coupling case and wastewater-based surveillance with high-throughput sequencing strategies to understand the dynamics of medically important viruses in human populations. Ultimately, to develop early warning systems valuable for guiding public health interventions like the development of diagnostics, vaccine strain selection, and antiviral drug development. He has published over 60 research articles in peer-reviewed academic journals of repute and submitted over 1000 sequences and raw reads to GenBank and the SRA. He is a faculty member of the Ibadan Bacteriophage Research Team (IBRT) and a member of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, Nigerian Bioinformatics and Genomics Network, World Society for Virology, American Society for Microbiology, and American Society for Virology.

Professor Jon Iredell

Director and Chief Investigator, Phage Australia | Professor of Medicine and Microbiology, University of Sydney

Jon Iredell is a physician and microbiologist based at Westmead Hospital and the University of Sydney. His research group works on infections in the critically ill and in antimicrobial resistance and has been continuously funded by the Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council for more than 15 years. Recent work in the laboratory has focused on new solutions for antimicrobial resistant infections, including plasmid displacement approaches and bacteriophage therapy. Formal affiliations are: (1) Conjoint Professor of Medicine and Microbiology, Sydney Medical School and Sydney ID; (2) Director of the Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, The Westmead Institute for Medical Research; and (3) Senior Pathologist, NSW Pathology and Institute of Clinical Pathology and Medical Research.

Dr. Atunga Nyachieo, Ph.D

Chief of Research, Institute of Primate Research (IPR), Kenya

Dr. Atunga Nyachieo is currently the Chief of Research, Institute of Primate Research (IPR), Nairobi, Kenya. Dr. Nyachieo is a molecular biologist and biochemist. He has a BSc in Biochemistry from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (1999) in Kenya; an MSc in Molecular Biology from KULeuven, Belgium (2004); and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences (Mechanisms of Human Diseases) from KULeuven, Belgium (2010). Dr. Nyachieo’s research career focuses on the pathogenesis of human diseases.

Since 2015, Dr. Nyachieo started to focus on bacteriophages mainly as therapy against drug resistant bacteria. Since then, Dr. Nyachieo has been leading a phage team (called IPR phage hunters). So far, his phage team has published 15 papers and has isolated phages against numerous pathogenic organisms. Dr. Nyachieo has a phage laboratory where he is carrying out his research and also training both undergraduate and graduate students. Dr. Nyachieo works in collaboration with numerous phage researchers. In addition, he has also won several professional awards based on his career, including the prestigious Belgian Development Co-operation Prize for the best MSc thesis in 2004.

Ivy Mutai

Research Fellow and Bacteriophage specialist, Institute of Primate Research (IPR), Kenya

Ms. Ivy Mutai is a Research Fellow and Bacteriophage Specialist at the Institute of Primate Research (IPR), Nairobi, Kenya. She is a Phage expert and consultant with the U.S. Army Medical Research Directorate-Africa (USAMRD-A). Ivy holds a Masters’ degree in biochemistry from Kenyatta University (to graduate in December 2022) and a Bachelors’ degree in the same field from Karatina University (2016), Kenya. Ivy has been working under the support and supervision of the Director of Research, IPR, Dr. Atunga Nyachieo.

She is the recipient of the Phage Recognition and Achievement Award through the Evergreen State College, United States, and the Institute of Primate Research (2018). This was based on her excellent work in successfully and continuously training and mentoring phage participants in the Phage Lab Training Program at the IPR and other biomedical research institutions across Sub-Saharan Africa.

WPW 2021 Event Recordings

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In case you missed this event, you can watch all of the wonderful sessions from our World Phage Week 2021 speakers

Day 1

SESSION 1:

Prof. Graham Hatfull (Founder and International Coordinator, SEAPHAGES programme)

Sub-theme: Emerging AMR Crisis in Africa: The Fate of Bacteriophage Therapy Acceptance

SESSION 2:

Prof. Jesca Nakavuma (Senior Lecturer and Researcher, Makarere University, Uganda)

Sub-theme: Emerging AMR Crisis in Africa: The Fate of Bacteriophage Therapy Acceptance

Day 2

SESSION 1:

Prof. Zuzanna Drulis-Kawa (President-elect, International Society of Viruses of Microbes)

Topic: Fostering International Engagement in bacteriophage research for combatting AMR

SESSION 2:

Dr. Jessica Sacher (Co-founder, Phage Directory)

Topic: Science Communication as a tool for Phage Therapy Visibility and AMR Advocacy

Would you like to partner?

Send us an email at:

ibadanphageresearchteam@gmail.com

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