Phage as biodetectors: 1. Applicable for environmental, clinical, and food based diagnostics. 2. 2 FDA approved diagnostics using wild-type phage (B. anthracis & MRSA). 3. AOAC-approved Listeria recombinant reporter phage. Phage 'specific' attributes: 1. Very low cost; 2. Low complexity; phage does all the work; 3. Biodefense; high throughput. Phage/bacterial interaction that relies on infection: 1. Detection depends on host fitness: (1) Advantage for viability and antimicrobial susceptibility; (2) Tradeoff variability with using non-standardized/unknown samples. Phage 'plasticity': 1. Can rationally design/randomly select for phage variants with desired properties. 2. Phage continually evolving.
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