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

部落学院和大学方案的一个目标是提高为全国土著学生服务的特定高等教育机构的科学、技术、工程和数学教学和研究能力。扩大这些机构的STEM课程设置，扩大了学生在STEM领域追求具有挑战性和回报的职业的机会，为可能具有文化意义的领域提供了研究，并鼓励社区和一代人对科学和数学教育的欣赏。该项目与这一目标直接相关，而且将增加有关噬菌体基因组学的知识。西北印度学院的学生将收集和分离自己的分枝杆菌噬菌体（噬菌体）从校园内或附近收集的样本。学生将纯化选定的噬菌体并分离其基因组DNA，然后对噬菌体基因组DNA的一部分进行限制性消化分析，以确认基因组DNA的完整性，并检查限制性模式是否与先前表征的噬菌体相似。学生们还将准备用纯化的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 5136 MM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联合基因组研究所（JGI）进行基因组测序，在课程的后半部分，学生将使用基因搜索工具来识别和注释可能的基因。学生还将比较他们的基因调用的结果，以已知的，特征化的分枝杆菌噬菌体基因组，然后将他们完成的产品上传到GenBank，由国家生物技术信息中心（NCBI）维护的遗传序列的在线数据库。

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).