1. 1  Sometimes, gimbal. a contrivance, consisting of a ring or base on an axis, that permits an object, as a ship's compass, mounted in or on it to tilt freely in any direction, in effect suspending the object so that it will remain horizontal even when its support is tipped.
Phage typing is a method used for detecting single strains of bacteria. It is used to trace the source of outbreaks of infections. The viruses that infect bacteria are called bacteriophages (phages for short) and some of these can only infect a single strain of bacteria. These phages are used to identify different strains of bacteria within a single species. A culture of the strain is grown in the agar and dried. A grid is drawn on the base of the petri dish to mark out different regions. Inoculation of each square of the grid is done by a different phage.
Phage therapy or viral phage therapy is the therapeutic use of bacteriophages to treat pathogenic bacterial infections.Phage therapy has many potential applications in human medicine as well as dentistry, veterinary science, and agriculture.If the target host of a phage therapy treatment is not an animal the term  biocontrol  (as in phage-mediated biocontrol of bacteria) is usually employed, rather than phage therapy.hages are currently being used therapeutically to treat bacterial infections that do not respond to conventional antibiotics, particularly in Russia and Georgia. There is also a phage therapy unit in Wroclaw, Poland, established 2005, the only such centre in European Union countries.