Statement of Purpose

Foster communication and research related to phage biology and its practical applications, including:

• Support broader scientific and public education on the roles of bacteriophage in maintaining microbial ecology and in helping deal with the growing crisis in antibiotic resistant microbes
• Help put on international meetings, such as the Evergreen International Phage Biology Meeting, which foster communication among scientists working with phages at all levels
• Help support research related to the efficacy and practicality of using phages in helping control pathogenic bacteria, in human, plant and animal disease and in the environment
• Develop a clearinghouse for phage-related information and a network to help phage workers find appropriate collaborators and other means of support
• Provide support for relevant databases and phage and microbial culture collections
• Foster communications between phage workers and individuals concerned with control of potentially pathogenic bacteria: physicians and other health workers, veterinarians, farmers, public health workers
• Provide support for translation, refinement and publication of work documenting therapeutic and environmental applications of phages
• Support travel for phage biology and phage therapy workers from other parts of the world, such as Eastern Europe, to communicate and work with colleagues in the United States and Europe and for Western scientists to visit them in return to collaborate and to assist with publication of their work

Structure: The foundation will have a local board of directors in Olympia and an international Advisory Board. Where appropriate, the Foundation will draw on resources of the Bacteriophage Lab at the Evergreen State College. 

PhageBiotics Projects Needing Support

Eliava Student Training Program:

Explanation: The Eliava Institute is rich with people with 40 years or more of experience working with the isolation, characterization and application of therapeutic phages. Several are still active there who learned their skills from scientists who worked with Eliava and d'Herelle in the 1930's. However, the serious financial state of Georgia and the Institute for the last 10 years long meant that virtually no one new could be added or trained, and most of the younger workers actually left the Institute for financial reasons. The danger of loosing the wealth of knowledge and skills was as serious as was the danger resulting from frequent power outages of loosing the phage and bacterial collections.

Four years ago, the PhageBiotics Foundation proposed to support a two-year training program for students at the Institute, and our proposal was approved by the Institute Director and Council and by the Georgian Academy of Sciences. We supply $2000 per year per student. Part goes to the student, part pays for lab supplies, part slightly supplements the meager $30-$60 a month that their mentor is paid from the Academy of Sciences, and 10 % goes as indirect costs to the Institute. In addition, the students have a twice-weekly English class in which they discuss relevant scientific papers and they share their work in annual presentations at the Institute.

Nine students and six Institute labs have participated in the program so far and two more students will be starting this fall; the four who have finished are now employed in the field. The benefits have gone beyond just the training; it is clear that the students are serving as bridges between the various labs and as sources of hope for the future. The capstone for two of our students was the opportunity to participate in the Evergreen Phage Biology meeting last summer. We also helped bring 2 students now supported through a CRDF Student Project grant to Nina Chanishvili; these two have also joined our students' English classes. This fall, we are adding a weekly program of training in molecular techniques for all of the students, with help from the Institute's Lab of Molecular Biology, and we hope to put on a 3-week basic phage and molecular biology program next fall for applicants from the University and Veterinary and Medical schools. Henry Krisch has offered to invite the top student from our next new Eliava Student group to spend a period of time in Toulouse, France as an added incentive to draw top-notch applicants into the field.

Eliava Institute Infrastructure Support:

The Need: Little money is available for utilities, library maintenance and other such resources at the Institute. There will be indirect cost payments associated with the various International grants, but they are set up, unbelievably, so that none of the indirect cost money is available until the grant work has been completed - generally 3 years later! Power and water have been a particularly serious problem, since the Institute not only has had to deal with current bills but is being faced with the new American-run power company's push throughout Tbilisi to collect on old bills, including those from government agencies. Even after extensive negotiation, they were left with over $20,000 to pay for electricity and power has been shut off at times as a result. Those individual labs that have grants now have their own metering boxes and pay for electricity directly and a couple of US agencies and Phagebiotics all have made contributions, but help is still needed.

Support for students at Evergreen to do phage-related work and for translation of articles in Russian. Donations for these purposes are handled through a separate Evergreen Phage Biotics account at the Evergreen foundation, rather than commingling funds with money for the PhageBiotics Foundation.

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For more information contact Dr. Elizabeth Kutter at phagebiotics@attbi.com.

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