This Week’s Seminar From Karen Maxwell (U of T)!

Please join us for this week’s seminar from Karen Maxwell (U of T)!

There will be coffee and snacks before the seminar. Please bring your own mug.

Thursday 4:00PM, MDCL 2232 and on zoom (Passcode: cElegans)

Exploring the dark matter of phage genomes and its role in antiviral defence

Bacteria possess a diverse array of anti-phage defences, many of which are encoded in prophages and other mobile genetic elements. These defences provide a selective advantage to the cell containing the prophage in the presence of phage challenge. However, this advantage is balanced by potential cost to bacterial fitness as these systems are energetically costly to produce and run the risk of triggering autoimmunity. We are investigating the mechanisms through which prophages provide their host with antiviral defence and characterizing their regulation to gain insight into the complicated evolutionary dance taking place between bacteria and the phages that infect them.