Anika Kinkhabwala, a Genomics Manager with EpiBiome, presented at the 2017 Nanopore Community Meeting on “Understanding phage-bacterial host interactions for smarter therapeutics.” They spoke about the trends of antimicrobial resistance. EpiBiome is working with phages. Kinkhabwala noted that phages are very specific and recognize cells. Phage research has been happening since the 1920s. EpiBiome uses automation to isolate and sequence phages. The company has done manual discovery since 2014. In 2017, they launched an automation platform. With Matt Sullivan’s lab at OSU, they worked to sequence bacteria that are phage insensitive. Kinkhabwala identified genomic variants, assembling bacterial genomes with short and long reads. Mutants affecting LPS were identified. This information helps determine the mechanism of strain resistance and informs phage similarity. EpiBiome uses this approach to learn about phages and other clinically relevant bacteria.
