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PHAGES

Phages Helping Acquire Genuine Experiences in Science

PHAGES

Phages Helping Acquire Genuine Experiences in Science

Montana Tech’s 2024 National Institutes of Health Science Education Partnership Award Phages Helping Acquire Genuine Experiences in Science “NIH-SEPA PHAGES” project symposium took place April 14-16, 2024 at Fairmont Hot Springs, Fairmont, Montana.

For the past five years, PHAGES was funded by the NIH Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) grant program to provide citizen science bacteriophage discovery to thousands of K-12 students, and professional development for middle and high school teachers (specifically preparing them to sustainably and independently deliver phage discovery in their classrooms in the years to come). Phages are tiny viruses that infect and kill bacteria. Montana Tech’s bacteriophage discovery and characterization projects have resulted in more than 130 phages discovered, with 21 sequenced and
annotated complete genomes published in GenBank. PHAGES partnered with the University of Pittsburgh/Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s SEA-PHAGES program to archive the phages in their collection. Dr. Graham Hatfull is the lead investigator and the >25K phages in his collection have been the source of recent successful phage therapies for life-saving treatments of antibiotic-resistant infections using compassionate use/emergency authorization protocols.

The PHAGES project has provided funding support for equipment and supplies to enhance research opportunities for participating teachers and their students research projects in their school. Thirteen teachers from across the state were selected from a pool of qualified applicants to participate in our 5-year NIH-SEPA PHAGES project. As part of this project, teachers committed to three years of three-day classroom experiments in which their students engaged in phage discovery, four summer research academies, and to prepare for and deliver the phage experiment in their classrooms independently for two years. Funding was also provided for students to experience summer research internships at
Montana Tech or Montana State University.

The PHAGES project’s symposium hosted forty speakers and guests at Fairmont Hot Springs, Fairmont, Montana April 14-16, 2024. 

The agenda was as follows:

Sunday, April 14th : 3 pm check-in, 5 pm cocktails and welcome reception, 6 pm keynote presentation by Dr. Jack Skinner, with introduction by Montana Technological University Interim Provost & Executive Vice Chancellor, Dr. Michele Hardy.

Monday, April 15th : Breakfast, Montana Tech, Teacher and Student Presentations, Lunch, Keynote Presentation, by Robert Lester, Celebration Dinner with a welcome by Montana Technological University Chancellor Les Cook.

Tuesday, April 10th   Breakfast, Phagehunting from Afar, Early Montana Tech Phagehunters, lunch, Project summaries and Awards.

Participating teacher pairs presented a 40-minute presentation about their phage journeys on Monday. Montana Tech faculty and staff also made short presentations. Exciting keynote speakers are presented on Monday and Tuesday evening.

Montana principals and other significant district leaders joined this event. The research topics and national exposure of this program were showcase and the achievements of participating schools, teachers, and students were recognized and celebrated. 

Eleven participant teachers along with 16 additional guest speakers, guests, and PHAGES team,
totaling about 48 in all, attended the symposium. Five travelled from out of state; the rest from
Montana.

Marisa L. Pedulla, Ph.D., Professor of Biology, Montana Technological University
Principal Investigator, NIH SEPA PHAGES Project Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science and 1996 US Olympian

Rayelynn Brandl, CFWEP Director, Program Director

Download the full Symposium Program Synopsis

 

Read the Latest News from Montana Tech

BRIC (Bringing Research into the Classroom) is now PHAGES

Following the success of our “Bringing Research Into the Classroom (BRIC)” program at Montana Tech, PHAGES aims to continue this success with the following goals:

  • Equip teachers with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to provide high-quality bacteriophage-based research opportunities for students.
  • Establish a sustainable pipeline for students into the sciences.
  • Create self-sustaining satellite labs to ensure that students in underserved areas have access to local research opportunities. Select teacher leaders who have been involved with phage discovery in their classrooms for 4 or more years will serve as peer mentors to expand the project to their colleagues’ classrooms.

What is PHAGES?

Phagedigging Helping Acquire Genuine Experiences in Science provides training and mentoring to teacher leaders experienced with phage discovery in their classrooms and demonstrates a sustainable model for the >100 HHMI SEA-PHAGES faculty across the country to expand their reach to K-12 teachers and students.

What outcome will PHAGES have?

PHAGES teacher leaders gain the skills to independently prepare and deliver phagedigging for their own classrooms and mentor teacher colleagues to expand phagedigging to other classrooms, so that thousands of elementary through high school students can collect and test local soil and water samples and discover new bacteriophages. PHAGES students and teachers will engage in genuine research: citizen science bacteriophage discovery, and contribute to the known collection of bacteriophages.

The Bringing Research Into the Classroom (BRIC) project now known as PHAGES at Montana Tech in Butte, MT has been providing research experiences for Montana teachers and students since 2014. To date, BRIC/PHAGES has provided phage discovery to more than 8,000 students including some of Montana’s most remote communities. 

Since 2014 the BRIC Program has:


Traveled
46,000 miles


Served
8,000+ Students


Discovered
19 Phages


Sequenced
8 Phages


Trained
28 Teachers

Citizen Science Phage Discovery in the Classrooms

Phages are viruses that infect bacteria and can be useful tools for fighting antibiotic-resistant bacteria.  They are the most numerous biological entity on the planet.  BRIC works directly with students in middle schools and high schools for  3-day phage discovery projects.  Students and their teachers isolate phages from samples they collect from their local environment.  If the students discover a phage, they choose a name the phage, and it is added to the database of phages at phagesdb.org.  This three-day research experience engages students in relevant biomedical citizen science. From Dr. Pedulla’s outreach programs, combined, students have discovered over 100 new-to-science phages.  All phages discovered in BRIC are included in the phagesdb.org database, ten have been sequenced and annotated, and 8 additional phage genomes are currently being sequenced.

Related News

New TEM Electron Microscope being used by PHAGES teachers – Oct. 2024 (click on video below)

Science classes take part in the PHAGES Project

CR Anderson students contribute to tuberculosis treatment research

TEM Electron Microscope

Video – Teachers Using Microscope

Pipeline Students Gallery

For six weeks over the summer students from PHAGES classrooms across Montana came to Montana Tech’s campus to participate in summer research where they had authentic experiences doing hands-on science in a lab setting. During their time on campus and in the lab, the students characterized and curated bacteriophages and presented their research and results at a symposium at the end of their program.

View Pipeline Student Posters

Teacher Academy Gallery

As part of the PHAGES program mentor and mentee teachers come to Montana Tech’s campus for a week-long teacher academy over the summer to improve on and learn new skills for using bacteriophage research in the classroom. This year teachers practiced lab techniques, learned how to perform genome annotations, discussed topics like vaccines and diversity in science, and created products to use with their students.

Teacher Instructions

Teacher Instructions

Instructions to prepare reagents for phage discovery

Publishable Research »

Publishable Research

Characterization of a Bacterium Isolated from Hailstone in Butte, Montana

By: M. Lane and A. Walter: Submitted to Intermountain Journal of Sciences

Development of a Plaque Assay System for Streptococcus salivariuson BHI Agar

By: K. Walter: Submitted to Intermountain Journal of Sciences

 

Brandl, R.L., Pavlovich, C.L., Pedulla, M.L. (2024) “Bringing Research Into the Classroom: Bacteriophage Discovery Connecting University Scientists, Students, and Faculty to Rural K-12 Teachers, Students, and Administrators,” Journal of STEM Outreach,  7: 1–15.

Annotated bacteriophage genomes submitted: 

Totinger (accession no. PQ36268) (2024). Published in GenBank Mycobacteriophages Anedea (accession no. PP978811, Daka (accession no. PP208931) (2024) Starcevich (accession no. OR475289 ), Rialto (accession no. OR475257) (2023), Tooj (accession no. OP820473), VRedHorse (accession no. OP867027), GigiOuiOui (accession no. OP297528) and Whatsapiecost (accession no. ON526976) (2022) Eradicator (accession no. MZ171378) (2021), Rope (accession no. MT684602) and Moonbeam (accession no. MT684593) (2020) Prickles (accession no. MN444868) and Tomaszewski (accession no. MN096364) (2019) Wamburgrxpress (accession no. MH744425) HSavage (accession no. MH576954) Oliver Walter (accession no. MG925356) BigPaolini (accession no. MK112530) and GageAP (accession no. MH020236), (2018) Froghopper (accession no. MK112540) and Mr.Yolo (accession no. MH338239) (2017) Nimrod (accession no. MK433262) and DillTech15 (accession no. MH077578) (2016) OwlsT2W (accession no. MH051257) (2015)

SEPA to INBRE Biomedical Pipeline »

SEPA → INBRE Biomedical Pipeline

Undergraduates:

Hannah Sparks, Montana Tech – INBRE Summer Undergraduate, Research Fellow

Autumn Lineback, Montana Tech—SEPA/INBRE Research Scholar*
*Former BRIC student at Billings West High School

High School Students:

Erin Fogarty, Butte High School/Montana Tech—SEPA/INBRE Research Scholar*
*Former BRIC student at Butte High School

Bo Rost, Baker High School/Montana Tech—SEPA/INBRE Research Scholar*
*Former BRIC student at Baker High School

Kenna White, Butte High School/Montana State University—SEPA/INBRE Research Scholar