Brandon Berryhill

Graduate Student, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Program, Emory University

I am a Graduate Student in the Levin Lab (EcLF) focusing on the population and evolutionary dynamics of bacteriophage and their hosts. I spent two years as an undergraduate at Emory in the Levin Lab looking at the dynamics of the seemingly perfect phage for phage therapy, PYO. I took a gap-year in the EcLF before starting graduate school where I focused on understanding and modeling the dynamics of bacterial defense systems such as Abortive Phage Infection and Crispr-based immunity; as well as the role these systems play with respect to resistance in natural bacterial communities. As a graduate student I have focused primarily on understanding virulence in common bacterial pathogens such as Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus with an emphasis on the conditions under which virulence will be favored to evolve and how best to treat virulent infections (in the Galleria mellonella model system) with both bacteriophage and antibiotics. I am currently involved in several other projects such as: evaluating the role of phage in the success of Fecal Microbiota Transplantations, using phages as proxies to track pathogens in clinical environments, developing a phage product for potential eIND application, and designing and assisting in the microbial validation of Emory Hospital’s Serious Communicable Disease Unit (SCDU).

For information about these projects, write to me at brandon.berryhill@emory.edu