The Z project will provide essential service functions for all participating groups of the SPP and access to state-of-the-art methodologies for studying all relevant aspects of the biology of prokaryotic viruses and will also be in charge of the long-term conservation, quality control and distribution of the isolated bioresources and their data.

Besides isolation of new viruses, the main services within the SPP comprise different aspects of phage biology, including host spectra analyses, growth/lysis kinetics and parameters (burst size, efficiency of plating, etc.), the analysis of phage-host interactions like adsorption at receptors, virus structure via transmission electron microscopy, as well as genomics of both host organisms and bacteriophages. The virus-associated (meta)data will be made accessible through a central database module that will be developed within the established database BacDive. guaranteeing an easy, yet comprehensive, access to all information concerning the model organisms of the SPP.