Roadmap for Phage technologies

What are we trying to achieve and why? What is the problem we are trying to solve?

Construction new phages de novo with well understood characteristics and genome structure.
To construct a retargetable platform that can be tweaked to meet different needs.

What are the scientific and technological challenges (knowledge gaps needing to be addressed)?

Mechanics of more widely applying editing systems that will enable development of phages with desirable characteristics such as expanded host range.
Genetically retarget the phages, orthogonally functionalize the capsid surface, get possibly rid of the phage nucleotide core (genome).
Need to ensure avidity is not reduced, if affinity is increased.
Regulatory challenges.

What approaches could/should be taken to address the research question?

Explore de novo construction of phages with desirable attributes, cloning and expression systems.
Investigating new ways of selecting sequences to be kept (positive as well as negative screens).

What else needs to be done before we can solve this need?

Long-stretch PCR to help in de novo construction of larger viruses
Targeting moieties that are selective enough (peptides, Abs, natural ligands
Knowledge can fuel synthetic biology approaches to engineer and retarget phage delivery platforms

Existing knowledge including successes and failures

Methods for de novo construction of small viruses already exist
Some selective targeting molecules reported in literature