.jpeg.jpg "Paula Zamora, PhD photo")
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dartmouth College
My name is Paula Zamora and I am a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Bomberger Lab at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. In the Bomberger Lab, we study lung polymicrobial infections in the context of CF. Here, my research has focused on phage therapy and its interaction with the human host. Phages are bacterial viruses that kill bacteria as part of their replication cycle. As bacteria reside in biofilms on the mucosal surface of the respiratory epithelium in CF, we hypothesized that phages could interact with the mammalian host. Because they are used therapeutically, it is crucial to investigate phage-epithelial interactions and their consequences in people with CF before phage therapy becomes the standard of care to treat multridrug resistant infections. My background as a molecular virologist and cell biologist, as well as the knowledge obtained during my PhD in Immunology and Microbiology (Vanderbilt University), positions me in a privileged spot to uncover the intricate relationship between lytic phages and mammalian cells.