Graham Hatfull is a microbiologist studying bacteriophages with a focus on those infecting Mycobacterium. His three main areas of interest include phage genomics, evolution, replication and host dynamics, the use of phage discovery and genomics to promote science education, and the therapeutic use of phages to treat Mycobacterium infections. The impactful education programs including SEA-PHAGES have provided the largest phage collection in the world (>28,000 isolates), and Hatfull has described their diversity and the evolutionary mechanisms giving rise to these phages. Hatfull’s group discovered and characterised new phage regulatory schemes, the mechanisms of phage integration, and novel lysis systems. The phages have been exploited to develop both versatile genetic tools for Mycobacterium genetics and engineering methods for constructing phage variants. His group exploited the vast phage collection and engineering strategies to develop phages for the first therapeutic treatment of a person with cystic fibrosis with a Mycobacterium abscessus infection in London.
Hatfull is a member of the US National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Microbiology.
Professional position
- Eberly Family Professor of Biotechnology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh
Subject groups
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Molecules of Life
Biochemistry and molecular biology, Molecular microbiology
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Cell Biology
General microbiology (incl bacteriology and virology), Genetics (excluding population genetics)
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Patterns in Populations
Evolution
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Health and Human Sciences
Medical microbiology
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Other
Science education at secondary level
