The purpose of the present invention is to provide a method for separating and concentrating a target substance as an alternative to existing cationic polymers, and a kit for implementing this method.

One embodiment provides a commensal gut production platform for ex vivo production of human gut commensal microbiota. Another embodiment provides devices, systems and methods for ex vivo culturing of gut microflora in a system that mimics the human gut environment. The culturing of the commensal microbiota in the disclosed systems produces gut microbiota having defined characteristics and properties that can be exploited to treat various conditions in a subject.

Disclosed herein are methods and systems for rapid detection of microorganisms in a sample. A genetically modified bacteriophage is also disclosed which comprises an indicator gene in the late gene region. The specificity of the bacteriophage, such as Salmonella-specific bacteriophage, allows detection of a specific microorganism, such as Salmonella spp. and an indicator signal may be amplified to optimize assay sensitivity.

Disclosed herein are novel methodologies for cloning prophage genome sequences that are identified from target organisms or DNA sequencing data and that contain mutations that decrease the function of prophage repressor proteins and for producing lytic phage particles with decreased prophage repressor protein function.

The subject matter of the instant invention relates to methods of enhancing harvesting of phages against a targeted host bacteria, as well as methods of identifying phages likely to have an enhanced propensity to infect and kill an infectious pathogenic bacteria in vivo, from samples comprising phages. The invention also relates to phage libraries, pharmaceutical compositions, methods of treatment, and phage-haled diagnostic methods and methods of detecting bacteria related thereto.

One embodiment provides a commensal gut production platform for ex vivo production of human gut commensal microbiota. Another embodiment provides devices, systems and methods for ex vivo culturing of gut microflora in a system that mimics the human gut environment. The culturing of the commensal microbiota in the disclosed systems produces gut microbiota having defined characteristics and properties that can be exploited to treat various conditions in a subject.

One embodiment provides a commensal gut production platform for ex vivo production of human gut commensal microbiota. Another embodiment provides devices, systems and methods for ex vivo culturing of gut microflora in a system that mimics the human gut environment. The culturing of the commensal microbiota in the disclosed systems produces gut microbiota having defined characteristics and properties that can be exploited to treat various conditions in a subject.

One embodiment provides a commensal gut production platform for ex vivo production of human gut commensal microbiota. Another embodiment provides devices, systems and methods for ex vivo culturing of gut microflora in a system that mimics the human gut environment. The culturing of the commensal microbiota in the disclosed systems produces gut microbiota having defined characteristics and properties that can be exploited to treat various conditions in a subject.

The present invention is directed to a method for producing bacteriophages infecting a bacterial host such as Flavobacterium columnare or Aeromonas sp, the method comprising the steps of adding the bacterium to a sterile culture medium supplemented with mucin or another mucus component, incubating said culture medium, thereby obtaining a bacterial culture, optionally collecting the supernatant containing floating (planktonic) bacterial cells from said culture and transferring the supernatant to a new container in order to discard most of the biofilm and adding a bacteriophage infecting the bacterium to said bacterial culture obtained from a previous step, and incubating the culture until the phage yield increases or peaks. The method can also be used for preparing modified enrichment cultures for optimized phage isolation. Addition of mucin to soft-agar culture medium is proposed as an optimized technique for viral titration. This invention also covers all relevant steps in setting up a phage therapy product: phage production, phage quantification and phage isolation.

One embodiment provides a commensal gut production platform for ex vivo production of human gut commensal microbiota. Another embodiment provides devices, systems and methods for ex vivo culturing of gut microflora in a system that mimics the human gut environment. The culturing of the commensal microbiota in the disclosed systems produces gut microbiota having defined characteristics and properties that can be exploited to treat various conditions in a subject.