Dr Antonia Sagona

Supervisor Details

Contact Details

School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick

Scientific Background

Research Interests

In my lab, we are interested in understanding the mechanisms of bacterial infection and phage therapy inside the mammalian cell environment. Bacteriophages or phages are viruses that have great specificity towards targeting their host bacteria and thus can be used as therapeutics to tackle bacterial infections, what we define as phage therapy. The interest in phage therapy has grown increasingly over the past decade, due to the emerging problem of antibiotic resistance in many bacterial pathogens. A major challenge to patient safety is the hospital infections due to gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria resistant to antibiotics. One of the possible solutions to this problem is the use of bacteriophages as antimicrobial agents. Bacteriophages are safe for humans and present high specificity to their bacterial target, while having minimal side effects. However, there are still concerns for phage therapy, over the potential for immune responses, rapid toxin release by the lytic action of phages and difficulty of dose determination in clinical situations. Additionally, there is little knowledge of the cell biology behind phage therapy due to the challenges in the field and that is an obstacle in the rapid progress of phage therapy. We try in the lab to address all these concerns and achieve a better understanding of how phages interact with bacteria in human cell environment. We are also interested in the development of new methods that will enable bacteriophages to be used as reliable diagnostics of bacterial infection.

Scientific Inspiration

The Israeli Nobel Laureate Ada E. Yonath. I participated in the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting few years ago and I had the chance to meet her in person and listen to her talk. At the time I had just given birth to my second son and listening to her -who is an impressive scientist- to talk with so lovely words about her family, her daughter and grandchildren, I felt that it is possible to combine everything if you really want to. Great passion and love for what you do can help you achieve this. For me, for all these reasons, she is a role model and inspiration.

Research Groups

Sagona Lab

Microbiology and Infectious Diseases

Cells and Development

Quantitative, Systems and Engineering Biology

Warwick Integrative Synthetic Biology Centre (WISB)

Warwick Antimicrobial Interdisciplinary Centre (WAMIC)

Monash Warwick Alliance

Supervision Style

In three words or phrases: outcome-oriented, supportive, understanding.

Provision of Training

I prefer to take responsibility for your technical training at first, leading to more independence later.

Your training will be supervised further by my experienced post docs/PhD students.

Progression Monitoring and Management

I will expect you to take full ownership of your progression but come to me when you need help troubleshooting.

I am here for advice and guidance to help you reach the goals you set for yourself.

Communication

I am known to email my team/PhD students at all hours of the day and night, however I will not expect you to do the same.

I am happy to discuss any issues that are impacting your ability to fulfil your potential or my/our expectations.

PhD Students can expect scheduled meetings with me:

In a group meeting

At least once per week

In year 1 of PhD study

At least once per week

In year 2 of PhD study

At least once per fortnight

In year 3 of PhD study

At least once per month

These meetings will be a mixture of face to face, via video chat or telephone. I am usually contactable for an instant response on every working day.

Work Patterns

The timing of work in my lab is flexible, and (other than attending pre-arranged meetings), I expect students to manage their own time. The work is lab based and therefore students need to come to the lab to perform experiments, in a flexible and efficient manner. I am always available to help the students the way they want. Some students wish to be more closely supervised and I am happy to support them on this. Other students wish to be more independent and I am happy with that as well. The important for me is to keep the focus of the project in place and to design carefully how we can translate the results into publications, which is very important for the PhD student’s future career.

Notice Period for Feedback

I need at least 1 weeks’ notice to provide feedback on written work of up to 5000 words.

MIBTP Project Details

Current Projects (2025-26)

Primary supervisor for:

Isolation & Characterization of bacteriophages for clinical applications

See the PhD Opportunities section to see if this project is currently open for applications via MIBTP.

Please Note: The main page lists projects via BBSRC Research Theme(s) quoted and then relevant Topic(s).

Isolation & Characterization of bacteriophages for clinical applications

Secondary Supervisor(s): Professor Sascha Ott

University of Registration: University of Warwick

BBSRC Research Themes: Understanding the Rules of Life (Microbiology)

Project Outline

Bacteriophages are viruses with great specificity for infecting their bacterial hosts, allowing their use as targeted antibacterial agents. Phage therapy has received more and more interest nowadays, due to the problem of antimicrobial resistance. Recently, the UK government released a Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee inquiry on the antimicrobial potential of bacteriophages (https://committees.parliament.uk/call-for-evidence/2970/), indicating the urgency of phage therapy to be established in UK.

In this project, we propose to isolate, characterize and study the mechanisms of action of novel bacteriophages targeting clinical E.coli K1 isolates. Sagona lab has worked extensively on K1F bacteriophage (1,2,3,4) and its respective bacterial hosts and this knowledge will be used to expand now on clinical isolates and the novel phages targeting those.

Aims and Objectives

The overarching aim of the project is to isolate, characterize and study the mechanisms of action of novel E.coli K1 Bacteriophages towards their clinical host.

The specific aims of the project are the following:

1. To receive in collaboration with UCWH hospital clinicians, clinical bacterial E.coli samples, sequence those, characterize those for antibiotic susceptibility and store those.

2. To isolate based on the clinical isolates novel bacteriophages that can efficiently target the E.coli clinical isolates.

3. To sequence, characterize using microbiological bioinformatic assays the novel bacteriophages.

4. To perform advanced electron microscopy to identify the structure of these bacteriophages.

5. To perform biochemical and cell biology assays to understand better the mechanisms via which these bacteriophages can clear E.coli infection in human cell environment.

A combination of microbiology, phage biology, genome wide sequencing, biochemistry, electron microscopy, bioinformatics human cell biology and microscopy methods, will enable us to reach the objectives of the project.

References

1. Engineered K1F bacteriophages kill intracellular Escherichia coli K1 in human epithelial cells. Møller-Olsen C, Ho SFS, Shukla RD, Feher T,Sagona AP.Sci Rep. 2018 Dec 3;8(1):17559. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-35859-6.PMID:30510202.

2. Genetic Engineering of Bacteriophage K1F with Human Epidermal Growth Factor to Enhance Killing of Intracellular E. coli K1. Williams J, Kerven J, Chen Y, Sagona AP. ACS Synth Biol. 2023 Jul 21;12(7):2094-2106. doi: 10.1021/acssynbio.3c00135. Epub 2023 Jun 15.PMID:37318278.

3. Transposable Element Insertions into the Escherichia coli Polysialic Acid Gene Cluster Result in Resistance to the K1F Bacteriophage. Styles KM, Locke RK, Cowley LA, Brown AT, Sagona AP. Microbiol Spectr. 2022 Jun 29;10(3):e0211221. doi: 10.1128/spectrum.02112-21. Epub 2022 Apr 25.PMID:35467398.

4. Bacteriophage K1F targets Escherichia coli K1 in cerebral endothelial cells and influences the barrier function. Møller-Olsen C, Ross T, Leppard KN, Foisor V, Smith C, Grammatopoulos DK,Sagona AP.Sci Rep. 2020 Jun 1;10(1):8903. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-65867-4.PMID:32483257.

Previous Projects (2024-25)

Primary supervisor for:

Isolation & Characterization of bacteriophages for clinical applications

Co-supervisor on projects with Dr Mojgan Rabiey and Dr Ed Smith.

Previous Projects (2023-24)

Investigation of the effect of oxygen and temperature levels on E.coli K1 phages infection