Background

Bacteriophages continue to gain regulatory approval for human therapeutic use, as well as antimicrobial use in food and agricultural settings against antibiotic-resistant bacteria, resulting in a clear need for rapid susceptibility profiling of bacterial isolates against large, decentralized phage biobanks.

The current gold standard in phage susceptibility testing, which has remained unchanged for over a century, is the culture method, which can take from overnight to several days. The challenge is compounded by the lack of a global phage biobank, a reality that may persist for the foreseeable future, making phage antimicrobial use reliant on decentralized phage biobanks around the world.