About Us

The laboratory of molecular phage biology belongs to the Institute of Food, Nutrition, and Health (IFNH) of the Department Health Sciences and Technology (D-HEST) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich.

We are fascinated by the largely unexplored biology of bacteriophages, the viruses infecting bacteria, that are main players in all ecosystems around us and within us. Bacteriophages are highly abundant, incredibly diverse, and carry genomes full of enigmatic “dark matter”, i.e., genes without any known function. Our laboratory is shedding light on these mysteries to discover new fundamental biology with applications in clinics and biotechnology. For this purpose we are leaving the comfort zone of classical models or standard laboratory conditions. Instead, we study bacteriophages in setups that mimic the conditions which matter in nature or inside patients suffering from bacterial infections.

This approach enables us to reveal unique specialized strategies that different groups of bacteriophages use to infect and overpower their bacterial hosts. We then unravel the molecular mechanisms underlying these infection strategies using techniques ranging from advanced molecular genetics to biochemistry and live microscopy. This basic research builds the foundation of diverse applications, e.g., when we use our knowledge to genetically engineer bacteriophages for enhanced therapeutic impact or to build new tools for biotechnology.