by Stephen T. Abedon Ph.D. Steve Abedon, Ph.D., has taught well over 100 individual classes and ~10 individual courses (including introductory biology, microbiology, physiology, biochemistry, etc.) over his 30+ years as a college professor. He has over 150 publications, including multiple monographs, and is ranked in the top 1 or 2 percent among researchers of all disciplines worldwide. His research focuses on bacteriophage biology and phage therapy. (abedon.1@osu.edu)
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phage.org/terms/killing_the_winner.html · Abedon’s Books · DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20173633
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Winners are bacteria that have achieved sufficient numbers that they are capable of supporting phage population growth to densities that can drastically reduce in number these same phage-susceptible bacteria. Active phage therapy requires that bacteria either have achieved or will achieve a winner status whereas passive phage therapy can be effective even against non-winner bacterial types.
Note that the frequency-dependent selection involved in kill the winner can more specifically be described as stabilizing frequency-dependent selection. Note also that contrary to the "winner" state there is phage existence at densities that can be described as numerical refuges.
For review of the concept of kill the winner, see Thingstad et al. (2008).
Abedon, S.T. (2026). Phage Terms. https://terms.phage.org · 10.5281/zenodo.20173633
Every term in the Glossary of Bacteriophage Terms. The current page is highlighted purple.