Introducing Nino, our visiting Georgian (country not state!) PhD Candidate

This Fall-Spring we're hosting visiting PhD candidate Nino Grdzelishvili in our lab. Nino studies phage characterization and brings with her a wealth of experience from the original phage therapy center itself, the George Eliava Institute of Bacteriophages, Microbiology, and Virology.

"Why are Americans so lazy? Nobody walks anywhere or cooks properly! All your food is half-prepared. I guess you're saving time for more serious things. Maybe..." - Nino

Her project focuses on isolating, characterizing, and testing the therapeutic potential of P. aeruginosa phages. We're hoping to 'wow' her with our own set of phage skills while learning more about phage diversity and cocktails from her.

This post comes a little late, but we're hoping that so far Nino has enjoyed her experiences with us, including (but not limited to) food adventures with Tiffany & Wai Hoe, spending the holidays going on Ugly Sweater Pub Crawls with the lab, and attending seminars at UCSD.

Left to Right: Nino enjoying Californian classic "In-and-Out" burger, the Roach Lab at the Ugly Sweater Christmas Pub Crawl, and Nino with UCSD's Triton after a phage seminar.

In her spare time, Nino enjoys making homemade Georgian sweets (which the lab appreciates), watching films 🎬, hiking 🚶‍♀️, traveling ✈, and reading sci-fi books 🚀.