Bacteriophage Discovery

The purpose of this VIP is for students to isolate their own novel bacteriophages from soil samples they collect. Students will then purify and characterise bacteriophage viruses, getting the opportunity to name their phage and once purified store them long term for future research or clinical applications. Bacteriophages are the most abundant organism in the biosphere, so any bacteriophage isolated will be novel and worthy of further characterisation. At the end of the semester some of the bacteriophages will be selected for genomic sequencing. Until we build a bank of sequences bacteriophages from this VIP project, students will use existing bacteriophage genomes from GenBank and the SEA-PHAGE program to perform bioinformatics analysis. This will involve using computer programs and software to compare bacteriophage genomes to further understand their genetic diversity and evolution. Students can choose to look at full genomes or focus on individual proteins of interest.

The specific goals of the project are:

to isolate bacteriophages from environmental samples collected by students
to develop laboratory skills to purify and amplify a single novel population of bacteriophage
to explore the diversity of bacteriophage within our environment
to evaluate existing bacteriophage genomic data to understand more about the diversity of bacteriophage genomes.

Students working on this project will use the following methods and technologies:
- Literature review of the genomic diversity of bacteriophages and their clinical applications to phage therapy.
- Laboratory techniques including microbiology and molecular biology skills (for example pipetting, direct isolation, enrichment isolation, spot tests, plaques assays, DNA extraction, restriction digest)
- Archiving and long-term storage of isolated bacteriophage.
- Analysis of existing DNA sequence data and protein sequence data.
This project will be assessed through the following coursework:
- Blog post
- Presentation
- Group poster
- Lab notebook or genome annotation notebook
- Reflective log
Assessments are scaled based on number of credits, and not all students will complete all assessments.

Bacteriophage Discovery

Candidate eligibility

Methods and technologies

Assessment