Biomathematics Seminar Series: Blessing Emerenini

Speaker: 

Blessing Emerenini (Rochester Institute of Technology)

Title: 

Data Assimilation of Bacteria-phage interactions in Cystic Fibrosis Patients

Abstract: 

Biofilm formation within host can be extremely problematic if left untreated. Certain lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis can cause biofilms formation in the lungs. With antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the use of phage therapy has been introduced as an alternative or an additive to the use of antibiotics in order to combat biofilm growth. The aim of using phage treatment is to reduce biofilm growth or completely eradicate biofilm from the host. There are several factors that still need to be understood during this process, e.g the role of burst size. This presentation will introduce the use of mathematical models and data assimilation to determine several factors that could lead to controlling biofilm growth or eradicate it using phage therapy.