The Barometer Online

Issue date: 11/18/09 Section: News

Media Credit: contributed Oregon State University freshmen Katlyn Taylor, left, and Roopa Sriram, right, test the phages they've been researching in a special biology lab, supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The freshmen have the unique opportunity to do research that will be published.

By Ryan Gunderson

The Daily Barometer

For the last two years, OSU undergraduates have been researching and documenting bacteriophages, commonly known as phages (viruses that infect bacteria), as part of a three-year research project funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

OSU was one of 12 universities to be chosen by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute over a year ago to create an undergraduate genomics lab for students to research and catalogue phage DNA. The project has now expanded to 28 schools and OSU has increased from 14 students last year to 17 now in their second year.

Phages are microscopic viruses that attack and kill bacteria by using the bacteria as a host to create more and more phages, while destroying the bacteria in the process.

"We felt this was a great opportunity to bring something exciting and important to OSU," said Barbara Taylor, a professor of zoology and co-instructor of the phage research lab. "This is one of the first national projects to change the way undergraduates experience biology labs."

The alternative lab is offered to students in the University Honors College who want to experience more than just the general lab associated with the Principles of Biology courses, BI 211, 212 and 213.

The program also offers undergraduate students a chance to have their genome sequences and research published, as the 14 lab members did last spring at the National Center for Biology Technology Information.

According to Dee Denver, a co-instructor of the lab and an associate professor of zoology, their genome sequence for the phage "Colbert," named after Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central, is published with the all the students' names and could eventually play a part in developing treatments for tuberculosis.

"In normal labs, we only do things that have already been done before," said Tucker Doyle, a freshman majoring in zoology. "But this is always something new and exciting. It'd be cool to be able to say that I helped find a treatment for tuberculosis."

Continued...

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