EXPANDING THE APPLICATIONS OF BACTERIOPHAGES IN FOOD SAFETY
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Bacterial contamination of food is a global concern. Methods of treating bacterial contamination are limited. Bacteriophages, bacterial viruses, offer a promising solution. However, bacteriophages may have limited application for foods that undergo sterilization processing, are inhospitable to organisms, or must be maintained in a dry state. This thesis focused on methods to expand the application of bacteriophages. First, bacteriophages were subjected to generalized stresses of desiccation, heat, and acidity, under laboratory conditions to propagate new populations with improved stress resistance. However, testing of these stress-resistant populations under real-world conditions failed to produce results comparable to generalized laboratory conditions. Success in the application of selected bacteriophages may require high situational specificity during selection, including in terms of food matrix and stress mechanics. The focus of our research shifted from the modification of bacteriophage populations themselves to the development of food-safe protective matrices. Designed matrices encapsulate bacteriophage for integration with modern food production and even the food products themselves. A pullulan-trehalose sugar powder was developed for the protection of a model bacteriophage from pasteurization. Microparticles were engineered such that the majority of the particle would be composed of trehalose as a stabilizer and polysaccharide pullulan was designed to accumulate at the particle surface to slow dissolution. This structure resulted in a bacteriophage powder that remained intact and protective over short-term high-temperature pasteurization, whereas unprotected bacteriophage experienced significant loss in titer. Leucine-lactose and leucine-lactose-maltodextrin microparticles were engineered for the inclusion of bacteriophage in powdered infant formula. The bacteriophage powder was designed as a dormant protection system that could activate upon reconstitution. The excipient system was formulated to not significantly affect the pH, composition, and dissolution of commercial infant formula. The bacteriophage powder was also engineered to match the shelf life and secondary shelf life of infant formula. Altogether, this thesis demonstrates that bacteriophage application in different foods can be expanded through particle engineering.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".