Advancing SEA-PHAGES at Northwest Indian College to Promote Indigenous Voices

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。西北印度学院（NWIC）的学生将从校园内或附近收集的样本中收集和分离自己的分枝杆菌噬菌体（噬菌体），其中一个项目专注于萨利希海的蓝藻。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NWIC的萨利希海研究中心合作，以确定它们的噬菌体形态。然后，一个噬菌体的基因组将被送到汉堡大学进行基因组测序，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编码的结果，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。 在弗吉尼亚州阿什兰举行的全国SEA-PHAGES会议上的演讲进一步发展了学生的研究技能。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

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 (NWIC) students will collect and isolate their own mycobacteriophage (phage) from samples collected on or near campus, with one project focusing on the cyanobacteria of the Salish Sea. 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 NWIC's Salish Sea Research Center to determine their phage morphology. The genome of one phage will then be sent to the University of Pittsburg 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 coding 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). Presentations at the national SEA-PHAGES conference in Ashland, VA further develop student research skills.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.