The doctor took a throat swab of each patient and prepared cultures of each sample. How might the doctor be able to differentiate between pathogens based on the growth of the specimens over a certain period of time?

The doctor can confirm the presence of the pathogens by PCR

Explanation:

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a technique widely used in molecular biology that is based on the amplification of specific DNA sequences. This technique enables to identify specific genomic sequences and therefore it can be used to differentiate between pathogens

either two or three