https://video.igem.org/videos/watch/ee04bf64-bbb3-4af4-9e2d-c78fc4654d8d Title: Phagenomics: Rebuilding the Ancestors of a Phage Tail Spike Description: A phage can only kill the bacteria it can recognise, and that recognition is settled in the first seconds of contact by the tail spike. We do not yet know which parts of that protein set host range, or how to aim a phage at a new host. We isolated and sequenced our own phage — 9-2-1 Φ8, a novel ~62 kb podovirus collected from water and soil around Claremont, California — and we treat host range as an evolutionary question. We reconstruct the ancestors of its receptor-binding protein, build them in the lab, measure how tightly each one binds, and feed those measurements back into a model that tells us what to change next. Every genome figure in this video is drawn from our own assembly and annotation. The narration and music are AI-generated by the team and credited on the end card. Phagenomics — iGEM 2026, Claremont, California. Official Page Tue, 01 Sep 2026 16:51:47 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://video.igem.org https://video.igem.org/client/assets/images/icons/icon-1500x1500.png https://video.igem.org/videos/watch/ee04bf64-bbb3-4af4-9e2d-c78fc4654d8d All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://video.igem.org/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.