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PHAGES

Phages Helping Acquire Genuine Experiences in Science

PHAGES

Phages Helping Acquire Genuine Experiences in Science

Applications Now Open! SEPA INBRE Summer 2023 Research Scholar Program

Did you participate in the BRIC or PHAGES phage discovery program at your high school or middle school? If so, you are eligible to participate in the SEPA INBRE Summer 2023 Research Scholar Program at either Montana Tech or Montana State University.

Montana Tech SEPA INBRE Research Scholar Program Application Summer 2023

  • Open to high school students, incoming college freshman, and college students at a participating university*.
  • Up to $2,800 in stipends available.
  • Application Deadline April 28, 2023.
  • Program dates are June 19 – July 28, 2023.

Apply here for 6-Week Montana Tech Program

5-Week Program at Montana State University

  • Open to incoming college freshman enrolled for fall 2023 at a participating university*.
  • Up to $3,000 in stipends available.
  • Priority Application Deadline is March 30, 2023
  • Five full-time weeks or 10 half-time weeks are required, flexible, between mid-May and mid-Aug, 2023.

Apply here for 5-week Montana State University Program

10-Week Program at Montana State University

  • Open to students currently enrolled for fall 2023 at a participating university*.
  • Up to $6,000 in stipends available.
  • Application Deadline March 1, 2023.
  • Ten full-time weeks are required, flexible, between mid-May and mid-Aug 2023.

Apply here for 10-week Montana State University Program

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

Science classes take part in the PHAGES Project

CR Anderson students contribute to tuberculosis treatment research

 

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

 

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