Summit
29 Jan 2026
The Fleming Initiative is proud to announce our inaugural science summit, to be hosted in partnership with Imperial College London and the University of Copenhagen.
Running from 8.30 - 18.00 at the Sir Michael Uren Hub on Imperial's White City campus, this summit will convene leading researchers, healthcare practitioners and key enablers to build awareness of the potential of phage therapy and discuss the challenges and opportunities in translating phage biology from laboratory bench to patient bedside.
The first of the two sessions of the summit will focus on the Advances in Phage Biology that continue to build our understanding of phage-bacteria interactions. We will delve into newly characterized phage diversity, mechanisms of host recognition and take-over, and the intricate evolutionary arms race between phages and their bacterial prey. Experts in artificial intelligence will highlight the pivotal role machine-learning and cognitive computing can play in exploiting phages as precision and personalised antibacterial therapeutics.
The Phage Therapy – Challenges and Opportunities session will examine the regulatory hurdles and public perception, clinical trials, standardisation, and production and market readiness challenges that must be navigated to enable the equitable therapeutic application of phages in clinical practice. This session will showcase compelling case studies of successful clinical applications, patient narratives, and insights from regulatory authorities and policy leaders.
We will conclude with a panel discussion which will highlight the incredible progress that has enabled delivery readiness of phage therapy and galvanize immediate actions needed to use phages as antibiotic alternatives.
Contact Dr Simon Dryden (simon.dryden@imperial.ac.uk) for more information. The day's finalised agenda is below:
Please note that this event is invite-only.