Dr. Marchi is a postdoctoral researcher in the Weitz Group at University of Maryland. He is a theoretical biophysicist interested in studying biological systems with theoretical models that capture their key features leading to the observed experimental behavior, borrowing tools from nonlinear dynamics and statistical mechanics.
MathBio Seminar | Jacopo Marchi (University of Maryland)
Mar 19, 2026
10:30AM to 11:30AM
Date/Time
Date(s) - 19/03/2026
10:30 am - 11:30 am
Speaker: Jacopo Marchi (University of Maryland)
Location: Hamilton Hall, Room 410 & Zoom
Title: Stable coexistence and transport of lytic phage infections with migrating bacterial hosts
Zoom link: https://mcmaster.zoom.us/j/98308755554 (Passcode: MathBio)
Abstract: Bacteriophage infections of their bacterial hosts are central to the fate of the two most abundant organisms on the planet. Yet, the spatiotemporal balances leading to coexistence between lytic phages and bacteria are hard to predict. Intriguingly, chemotacting bacteria can pick up and co-propagate with virulent phage infections for extended periods, raising the question whether the emergence of this spatially complex persistence requires fine-tuning of phage-host interactions. In this work, we reported that travelling phage infections frequently settle into stable, linearly propagating waves for a variety of lytic phages and hosts, which coexist in Phage Amplified Spatially Extended Regions (PhASERs). We proposed a spatial model of phage-bacteria infection dynamics that recapitulates the empirical PhASERs patterns, indicating that our observations are consistent with a simple combination of microbial growth, chemotaxis, and phage infection ingredients.
We leveraged this theoretical formulation to map features of phage-bacteria interactions into quantitative properties of the stable infection waves. We observed these propagating infections to be remarkably robust to environmental changes and bacteria front speed. The travelling infections’ stability offers avenues for long-distance transport of phage through unmixed environments much faster than viruses would otherwise diffuse.