Phage Research in Singapore

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 03:57:06 +0000

A phage, also called a bacteriophage, is a virus that infects a bacterial cell. The phage is used to “eat” bateria in serious infections such as E. coli. Phages were discovered in the early 1900’s and people were treated by them. In the Soviet Union, they were used until the 1940’s. Phage research is resurfacing again because of some infections that are not responding well to antibiotics. Phages could be a better solution.

The Genome Institute of Singapore and a team of American scientists are together in doing phage research. These phages, the viruses and bacterial viruses, are among the most plentiful life forms on earth. Their research uses a comparative metagenomics approach to show phages associated with these structures are different from each other and others found in any other ecosystem.

Dr. Ruan Yijun, the Senior Group Leader at the Institute has been interested n this type of research since the SARS epidemic in 2002. While pursuing this interest, they developed a virus discovery program that resulted in discovering viruses in the human gut and the varieties of dengue viruses.

Phage research is important in discovering ways to fight the serious pandemic viruses that antibiotics may not be able to kill. Any research that advances medical alternatives is an advantage to the whole world.
Please keep in mind that you need an entrepass when you want to work in Singapore.

Welcome to Phage Base Blog

admin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 07:13:22 +0000

Thank you for visting our website. We just launched our new website. We are working hard on it and hope to be online as soon as possible with interesting topics.