SPARK: Systematic Profiling of Antibiotic-Phage Response Kinetics

SPARK quantifies phage–antibiotic interaction from growth curves across 42 combinations, resolving synergy and antagonism via integrated Bliss-independence deviation.

• Why it matters: Phage therapy is typically paired with ongoing antibiotics, but the interaction pattern is rarely designed or predictable from either agent alone.
• What they did: They measured bacterial growth curves for phage–antibiotic combinations spanning the ESKAPE pathogens and Escherichia coli, then computed interaction as the integrated deviation from Bliss independence.
• The result: Synergy and antagonism are resolvable in one high-throughput assay, clinical Staphylococcus aureus isolates vary as widely as seven species, and interactions can reverse over hours to two days.

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