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Contact Details

Phone
+64 3 479 7735
Email
peter.fineran@otago.ac.nz
Position
Professor
Department
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Qualifications
BSc (Hons) PhD
Research summary
Molecular microbiology and bacteriophages, Genetics, Biochemistry, Molecular biology

Research

Our research goal is to understand the interactions between mobile genetic elements, such as bacteriophages and plasmids, and their bacterial hosts. Our main interest is in phage resistance mechanisms.

The page-bacterium ‘arms race’

Accumulating evidence demonstrates that viruses are the most abundant biological entities on the planet. They outnumber bacteria by approximately 10 to 1 and there are an estimated >1030 tailed bacteriophages globally! The result is an obvious selective pressure for bacteria to acquire resistance to phage attack and for phages to acquire counter defence mechanisms. Indeed, many mechanisms of phage resistance are known, ranging from bacterial cell surface alterations, through restriction and modification, to abortive infection. Our research focuses on:

  • Abortive infection and toxin-antitoxin 'innate immune systems'
  • CRISPR-Cas 'adaptive immune systems'
  • Phages as antimicrobial agents

Publications

Wang, X., Jowsey, W. J., Cheung, C.-Y., Dickerhof, N., Chapman, C. L., Taka, J. R. H., Hampton, M. B., … Gardner, P., Fineran, P. C., Cook, G. M., Jackson, S. A., & McNeil, M. B. (2026). Genome scale CRISPRi reveals both shared and strain-specific vulnerabilities in genetically diverse drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Nature Communications. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1038/s41467-026-73952-x Journal - Research Article

Wang, X., Jowsey, W. J., Cheung, C.-Y., Dickerhof, N., Taka, J. R. H., Hampton, M. B., … Gardner, P., Fineran, P. C., Cook, G. M., Jackson, S. A., & McNeil, M. B. (2026, February). Genetic vulnerabilities in rifampicin resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis [Invited]. Verbal presentation at the Genetics Otago (GO) Annual Symposium, Dunedin, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs

Lim, C. S., Mace, P., Fineran, P. C., & Gardner, P. P. (2025). Towards a phylogenetically informed approach to solving protein-protein interactions [Perspective]. Biochemical Society Transactions, 53, 1457-1467. doi: 10.1042/bst20253031 Journal - Research Other

Lee, S. Y., Birkholz, N., Lee, J. H., Fineran, P. C., & Park, H. H. (2025). Regulation of anti-CRISPR operons by structurally distinct families of Aca proteins. Communications Biology, 8, 1698. doi: 10.1038/s42003-025-09101-9 Journal - Research Article

Martinez-Cazorla, A., Martinez-Jimenez, C., Lucas-Elio, P., Fineran, P. C., Jackson, S., & Sanchez-Amat, A. (2025). The early injected genomic region determines sensitivity to Type I restriction-modification defence against Autographiviridae phages. Nucleic Acids Research, 53(18), gkaf926. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkaf926 Journal - Research Article

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