Dr. Thomas first became interested in giant phages during her postdoctoral studies at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. At that time it became evident these phages, which were previously thought to be rare, were actually abundant in the environment. It also became apparent there was a massive gap in knowledge as to what makes a giant phage giant. To address this problem the Giant Phage Lab uses multi-disciplinary approaches to study the virion and host interactions of phage SPN3US.