Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) at Northwest Indian College (NWIC)

部落学院和大学计划（TCUP）的一个目标是提高为美国土著学生服务的特定高等教育机构的科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）教学和研究能力。在这些机构扩大STEM课程的范围，可以扩大学生在STEM领域追求具有挑战性、回报丰厚的职业的机会，为可能具有文化意义的领域提供研究，并鼓励社区和世代对科学和数学教育的欣赏。该项目与这一目标直接一致，而且将增加噬菌体基因组学的知识体系。西北印度学院的学生将从校园或附近收集的样本中收集并分离自己的分枝杆菌噬菌体。学生将纯化选出的噬菌体并分离其基因组DNA，然后对部分噬菌体基因组DNA进行限制性消化分析，以确认基因组DNA的完整性，并检查其限制性模式是否与先前表征的噬菌体相似。学生还将准备用纯化噬菌体固定的电子显微镜网格，并与西华盛顿大学合作，使用Vega TS 5136MM电子显微镜确定其噬菌体形态。然后，一个噬菌体的基因组将被送到能源部的联合基因组研究所（JGI）进行基因组测序，在课程的后半段，学生将使用基因搜索工具来识别和注释可能的基因。学生们还将把他们的基因调用结果与已知的、特征化的分枝噬菌体基因组进行比较，然后将他们完成的产品上传到GenBank，这是一个由国家生物技术信息中心（NCBI）维护的基因序列在线数据库。

A goal of the Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (TCUP) is to increase the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) instructional and research capacities of specific institutions of higher education that serve the Nation's indigenous students. Expanding the STEM curricular offerings at these institutions expands the opportunities of their students to pursue challenging, rewarding careers in STEM fields, provides for research studies in areas that may be culturally significant, and encourages a community and generational appreciation for science and mathematics education. This project aligns directly with that goal, and moreover will increase the body of knowledge on the genomics of bacteriophages. Northwest Indian College students will collect and isolate their own mycobacteriophage (phage) from samples collected on or near campus. Students will purify the elected phage and isolate its genomic DNA, and then conduct a restricted digest analysis of a portion of phage genomic DNA to confirm genomic DNA integrity and to examine if the restriction pattern is similar to previously characterized phages. Students will also prepare electron microscopy grids fixed with their purified phage and work with Western Washington University to determine their phage morphology using a Vega TS 5136MM electron microscope. The genome of one phage will then be sent to the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (JGI) for genomic sequencing, and during the second half of the course the students will use gene-searching tools to identify and annotate the probable genes. Students will also compare the results of their gene calling to known, characterized mycobacteriophage genomes before uploading their completed product to GenBank, an online database of genetic sequences maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).