In this talk, I will discuss the latest updates in phage taxonomy by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV). In the last two years, phage taxonomy has undergone a major update with the abolishment of the morphology-based families Myoviridae, Podoviridae and Siphoviridae. All phages in these families have been reassigned to new genome-based families or are currently grouped into the class Caudoviricetes which has replaced the order Caudovirales.

I’ll explain why this update was necessary, the history behind it, and how it will help your analyses, whether you work with novel phage isolates or at the viral community level.