Postcard: Discovering phage research in Australia

Posted on: 27 October 2023 by Dr Liberty Duignan in October 2023 posts

Dr Liberty Duignan from the Department of Clinical Infection, Microbiology and Immunology reports on their trip to Phage Australia.

Recently I was lucky enough to visit the Phage Australia group to get some hands-on experience of how they produce phages as part of their innovative STAMP clinical trial. Dr Jessica Sacher and the team were very friendly and accommodating, and happy for me to come and learn from them.

This visit was also very timely, as I am in the process of moving from a more phage discovery post-doc at the University to working as a part of the Researcher in Residence initiative. This will involve still being a researcher but working within the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) towards making phages on a large scale, to the high-quality standards needed to be able to use them to treat patients in the UK.

When I arrived at the Westmead Institute, Jessica introduced to other members of the phage Australia team, and showed me around the lab and the institute. We then talked about each other’s phage research background. I was able to ask a lot of questions that I had from reading about the STAMP protocol and the phage production process. Jessica introduced me to Dr Stephanie Lynch and was able to pick her brains about the matching and biobanking side of the process. They also talked through how they split the different steps of the phage manufacturing process between the two of them and discussed a current patient that required phages and the difficulties that they’d been experiencing. This is really beneficial as I was able to see how some of the steps were troubleshooted.

Jessica showed me the pieces of equipment used in the actual production of the phages and explained why and how they are used in a process. I was able to ask questions about each part to clearly understand and envision how it might be possible to upscale each technique, and learn about the equipment in more detail and why these machines are used to make the process more regulator friendly in a step towards being Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standard.

I also had the exciting opportunity to help with the quality control (QC) stages for two phages that were being given to a patient this allowed me to understand all the reports and quality measurements that are required for the phage to be classed as safe and stable enough to be used in treatment. This stage is the part of the process that I found the most useful to take back to the UK as if we can prove that the phages are safe using QC measures it may be possible to start treating patients before they are made to GMP standards.

One of the highlights of my visit was being able to sit in on the weekly clinical meeting. Getting to hear about the potential candidates for the next phage therapy and finding out the wide range of ailments they are suffering from was eye-opening. This was also my first experience of seeing lab scientists Jessica and Stephanie inputting into a clinical meeting helping make clinical decisions on patients.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the Westmead institute and I think that the Phage Australia operation is something to be highly respected as it’s amazing what they have achieved so far, with just a small team in a relatively short timeframe. I feel like the knowledge I have gained and the skills I have learnt have been invaluable and feel greatly enriched as a scientist by the whole experience.