Julie Thomas - Featured Faculty 2020

Her major research interest is phages “giant” or “jumbo” phages, so-called because they have unusually long genomes and large virions. Thirty undergraduate and graduate students from the Biotechnology and Molecular Biosciences, or Bioinformatics programs, have conducted giant phage research with Julie. Fifteen of these student researchers are co-authors on peer-reviewed manuscripts. One manuscript was recently featured on the cover of the journal Viruses.

The Thomas lab’s main focus is a large phage that infects the major foodborne pathogen, Salmonella. Student projects focus on the characterization of the phage genome, virion and/or life cycle. Their research relies heavily on genetics, combined with other approaches, including genomics, bioinformatics, proteomics (mass spectrometry) and structural (electron microscopy) analyses. The lab collaborates with scientists at the University of Texas, University of Maryland, NIH and RIT. The latter includes Dr. Blanca Lapizco-Encina’s research group in Biomedical Engineering who are pioneering a novel method to purify phages using dielectrophoresis. The Thomas lab’s overarching goal is to define at a molecular level how their phage infects and parasitizes the Salmonella cell. This information is key to using phages efficiently as biocontrol tools, currently an area of high research activity. Phages are promising alternatives to antibiotics for the many scenarios that drug-resistant pathogens pose health risks (human and animal pathogens), or cause significant economical loses (e.g., plant pathogens).

Julie Thomas
Assistant Professor
RIT College of Science