Student Presenter(s): Amanda Vaysman, Priscilla de Mesa, Hibah Rizvi, Maheen Babar
Faculty Mentor: Bryan Gibb
Department: Biological and Chemical Sciences
School/College: College of Arts and Sciences, Long Island

Staphylococcus aureus causes more than 119,000 bloodstream infections each year in the United States. These serious infections often need extensive treatment and can lead to long-lasting debilitating conditions or death. While antibiotics are commonly used to treat S. aureus infections, the overutilization of antibiotics resulted in increasing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant strains such as methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant S. aureus (VRSA). Phage therapy is a promising alternative that consists of using viruses that infect bacteria called bacteriophages. There are an estimated 1031 bacteriophages, more than any other organism and found in environments inhabited by their host. Household dogs have repeatedly been recognized to be carriers of MRSA. Dogs come into contact with a wide variety of environments that are filled with bacteria. We have isolated phages that infect S. aureus from the anus, paws, and noses of dogs. We are in the process of characterizing these phages to evaluate the host-range, lytic potential, image by transmission electron microscopy, and genome sequencing. These novel bacteriophages from dogs may hold therapeutic potential to be used in phage therapy for infections caused by S. aureus.