Big Sky School District

This month, all students in Dr. Eisele's science classes had an opportunity to participate in the PHAGES outreach program at Montana Tech. 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. PHAGES 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 PHAGES are included in the phagesdb.org database, ten have been sequenced and annotated, and 8 additional phage genomes are currently being sequenced.