In the last decade the number of antibiotic resistant bacteria has grown at a shocking rate, making these “superbugs” one of our top global health threats. This trend indicates that the golden age of antibiotics is ending and makes the search for new antibacterial treatments more important than ever. New bacterial treatments need the ability to adapt faster than the harmful bacteria that they target. Additionally, new treatments must preserve essential bacteria of the microbiome and specifically target pathogenic bacteria in a mixed population.

Utilizing a non-replicating phage as a vector, we can efectively deliver the CRISPR-Cas9 machinery to cells and kill bacteria through CRISPR-Cas9–targeting of the genome. Ongoing experiments are aimed at demonstrating that sequence-specific killing can occur in a mixed population of cells as well as in an in vivo model. We believe that this technology, which we refer to as “Pathogen Assassin” will have broad applications ranging from medicine to industry and beyond.