Good question! I would probably change the location from where we located the phage species to change up the overall identity of our phage. I’m thinking that this could increase our chance of getting a more “reliable” phage.
Since antibiotics are still widely used and there are so many unknowns with phage treatment, it can be difficult to prove the risk-reward balance from the treatment. I’m pretty sure the FDA just wants to make sure that thorough enough testing has been completed before injecting the virus into the patient since the virus is “alive”.
My best guess for this specific dilution factor would be because the 1:10 dilution allows for a quick exponential way to effectively dilute the phage in even measurements. It also kept things quite easy to manage within the lab when transferring solutions using the pipets.
With a low concentration of active phage, it can be difficult to isolate a significant sample of DNA. Since the genome is required to be sequenced before it can be considered for therapy, a low concentration lysate can prove to be a major roadblock in that step.
For the phage cocktail that your phage could potentially be used for: Which treatments would it potentially be able to enhance? Is this still just for turbuculosis?
Since this phage is known to infect TB strains from the use of M.smeg, it would most likely be used for a related cocktail. However, there could be further testing into which specific bacteria outside of the M.smeg “family” to test if that range could be broadened.
curesymposium.org 
If you could go back and change one element of your experiment, is there anything you’d like to change?
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Good question! I would probably change the location from where we located the phage species to change up the overall identity of our phage. I’m thinking that this could increase our chance of getting a more “reliable” phage.
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What is the reasoning behind the FDA’s strict criteria on phage use?
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Since antibiotics are still widely used and there are so many unknowns with phage treatment, it can be difficult to prove the risk-reward balance from the treatment. I’m pretty sure the FDA just wants to make sure that thorough enough testing has been completed before injecting the virus into the patient since the virus is “alive”.
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Why was a 1:10 dilution used in the phage buffer?
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My best guess for this specific dilution factor would be because the 1:10 dilution allows for a quick exponential way to effectively dilute the phage in even measurements. It also kept things quite easy to manage within the lab when transferring solutions using the pipets.
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You said that the concentration of active phages is low for phage therapy, why does the concentration matter?
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With a low concentration of active phage, it can be difficult to isolate a significant sample of DNA. Since the genome is required to be sequenced before it can be considered for therapy, a low concentration lysate can prove to be a major roadblock in that step.
LikeLike
You said the concentration of active phages is low for phage therapy, why does the concentration matter?
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For the phage cocktail that your phage could potentially be used for: Which treatments would it potentially be able to enhance? Is this still just for turbuculosis?
LikeLike
Since this phage is known to infect TB strains from the use of M.smeg, it would most likely be used for a related cocktail. However, there could be further testing into which specific bacteria outside of the M.smeg “family” to test if that range could be broadened.
LikeLike