Abdul Basit

Research Fellow

I am a synthetic phage researcher with expertise in design and engineering of bacteriophages targeting Pseudomonas aeruginosa. My current research focuses on engineering phages through rebooting from fully synthetic DNA to enhance their therapeutic potential, expanding host range and developing bio-contained/non-replicative synthetic phages.

I have background in phage engineering, including previous work on T5-like lytic phages employing CRISPR/Cas9 and Cas13 systems to investigate fundamental aspects of phage biology. Currently, as a member of the Westra Lab, I integrate synthetic genomics and molecular engineering approaches to develop next-generation, programmable phages and engineer phage production hosts to promote epigenetic modification, with the ultimate goal of advancing next-generation phage therapeutics.