Katherine Wetzel

Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
Ph.D., Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA
B.S., Emory University, Atlanta, GA

Bacteriophage, mycobacteria, virus-cell interaction, virology

Dr. Katherine Wetzel earned her B.S. from Emory University and her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in the lab of Dr. Ron Collman. For her Ph.D., she characterized entry pathways of HIV and related simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs). She then moved to the University of Pittsburgh for her postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Dr. Graham Hatfull. There, she studied bacteria of the genus Mycobacterium and the viruses that infect them, which are called bacteriophages or phages. Mycobacterium species include pathogens such as M. abscessus and model organisms such as M. smegmatis, and thousands of phages have been isolated that infect them. She first studied phage genome replication and developed new techniques for phage genome engineering. Then, she earned a postdoctoral fellowship from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and performed genetic screens to identify mycobacteria factors required for phage infection. She and her colleagues found that a specific glycolipid is required for infection of some, but not all, phages that are used in therapy. The results of this study will help care teams design the best possible phage-based therapies for their patients.

Research Interests

At Georgia State University, the Wetzel Lab studies interactions between mycobacteria and their phages in order to improve our ability to use phages as therapy against mycobacterial infections, provide insight into mycobacteria and their vulnerabilities, and define basic virus-cell interactions.