Biofilm Battlefields: Regulation of Anti-phage Defences and Prophage Conflicts in Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Supervisors
Dr Giuseppina Mariano, University of Glasgow
Dr Suzanne Humprey, University of Strathclyde
Prof Donal Wall, University of Glasgow
Summary
Bacteria have evolved diverse anti-phage systems to prevent bacteriophage (phage) infection. While many of these systems have been investigated under laboratory conditions, little is known about how they function in infection-relevant conditions. This PhD project focuses on Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a highly adaptable and antibiotic-resistant pathogen, to explore how anti-phage systems and prophage dynamics respond to oxygen limitation, biofilm formation, and physiological stress.
The student will investigate how anti-phage defences are regulated and activated in aerobic, anaerobic, and biofilm-associated environments, and how these conditions affect activation of integrated prophages. The project also investigates how multiple prophages within the same strain—many encoding their own anti-phage systems—interact, including potential prophage–prophage conflict, suppression of induction, and how prophages influence susceptibility to external lytic phages.
This discovery-focused project will uncover new biological principles in phage defence and prophage dynamics under structured growth and infection-relevant stress. It bridges molecular microbiology, phage biology, and bacterial physiology to examine regulatory behaviours and molecular interactions that remain poorly understood. The student will gain training in bacterial genetics, gene expression profiling, molecular cloning, and bioinformatics, including transcriptomics and comparative genomics. The interdisciplinary nature of the project provides a strong foundation for diverse careers in research or biotechnology.