Minmin Yen

Lytic bacteriophages (phages) play an important role in the life cycles of waterborne pathogenic bacteria such as Salmonella, Shigella and Vibrio species. For V. cholerae, which is the causative agent of cholera, lytic phages are thought to control the number of bacteria both in the environment and in the human intestinal tract during infection. However, very little is known about the biology and genetics of these phages. In order to better understand the interaction of such phages with V. cholerae, I am genetically and phenotypically characterizing three phages isolated from cholera patients.