Designer antimicrobials for rationally altering the human microbiome

The human microbiome comprises thousands of bacterial strains and species, where we still know little about how individual members contribute to community function and human health. In this talk, I will highlight my research group's ongoing work on developing programmable antimicrobials that can be tailored to remove individual members of a mixed microbial community. These antimicrobials are based on CRISPR-Cas systems--prokaryotic immune systems that have gained widespread attention for genome editing but also hold potential as next-generation antimicrobials. I will discuss how CRISPR-Cas systems can be co-opted as antimicrobial agents, our efforts to develop generalized delivery vehicles that rely on engineered bacteriophages, and how these vehicles can be exploited to delivery CRISPR antimicrobials to multiple species. By removing individual members of a microbial community, we seek to evaluate the specific role of each member in microbiome function and to begin rationally altering the composition of the human microbiome toward improving human health.