Sunday, January 8, 2017

Phage Patterned Knit Hat


This image shows a cross section of phage infecting an E. coli cell.
 Credit: Lee Simon. Source
My latest #ScienceKnit is this bacteriophage hat. Bacteriophage are viruses that attack bacteria. They generally consist of a head containing the genetic material and a tail where they attach to bacteria and insert their DNA into the cytoplasm of bacteria. Once the DNA is inside the bacterium, it uses the bacterial cell as a factory to replicate and assemble many copies of itself. After new phage have been assembled, the bacterium will break apart and release viruses to the environment. Bacteriophage therapy is a promising alternative to antibiotics as these phage specifically target bacteria and do not adversely affect humans. For more information about bacteriophage and phage therapy, see this Wikipedia article and this documentary about phage therapy.

The pattern for this hat can be found here on Ravelry, here on Craftsy, or purchased directly here



Thanks to Kat Ng for taking the pictures of me (and indulging my whim for a picture in the leaves).

2 comments:

  1. I love this. As a uplift target, I've always enjoyed drawing bacteriophages when teaching the Hershey & Chase experiment. Knitting and biology... A great fusion.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love this. As a uplift target, I've always enjoyed drawing bacteriophages when teaching the Hershey & Chase experiment. Knitting and biology... A great fusion.

    ReplyDelete