Introducing PhageBase
the first open-access phage image database
Hey Re: Life! Now that finals are through, I’m proud to unveil a project I hacked together a few weekends ago while procrastinating for finals.
This is PhageBase. It’s the world’s first (yes, first!) bacteriophage image database. Feel free to scroll around and play with it!
Why Should I Care?
Phages are viruses that prey on bacteria. As deadly bacteria gain resistance to our most potent antibiotics, phages are perhaps our most promising alternative.
And yet, our knowledge of phages is shockingly limited. While estimates suggest that Earth is populated by nearly 10³¹ phages, we’ve characterized hardly 1500 unique phage species. To put it another way, virtually everything about phages is still out there, waiting to be discovered.
To turn phages into useful therapeutics, we absolutely have to understand their dimensions and structure.
Right now, labs are attempting this alone. But with a shared database of phage structures, researchers can benefit from the entire world’s progress. And that means better, quicker solutions to the growing dilemma of antibiotic resistance.
What Can It Do?
This database lets you:
Search and sort phages - either by their name or the bacterial host they infect.
View and download their transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images
Contribute your lab’s own images
How Can I Get Involved?
For one, if you find this database useful, feel free to use it and cite it in your research.
We’re also accepting new submissions. If you have extra phage micrographs and a few minutes to spare, your contribution would life up the whole community.
Also, this app can still be glitchy at times, and we need your help to fix that. If you notice something off (even if you think it’s intentional), email aaryanh@stanford.edu. I’d love to hear from you.
Signing off,
-Aaryan
very cool