We are developing self-transmissible conjugative plasmids to selectively modulate microbial populations. This area of research is a collaboration with Greg Gloor, Bogumil Karas, David Heinrichs and Emma Allen-Vercoe (Guelph). Our goal is to create broadly transmissible plasmids for delivery of gene products that can modulate microbial populations, either through selective elimination of species by CRISPR-Cas9, or through delivery of gene modules for metabolic manipulation.
Publications related to this area of research:
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Hamilton, T.A., Pellegrino, G.M., Therrien, J.A., Ham, D.T., Bartlett, P.C., Karas, B.J., Gloor, G.B. and Edgell, D.R. (2019) Efficient inter-species conjugative transfer of a CRISPR nuclease for targeted bacterial killing. Nature Communications 10: 4544.
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