University at Buffalo (UB)
Can You Catch a Wild Bacteriophage, Cultivate It, And Characterize Its Genome?
Viruses that infect bacteria (called phages) are all around us, but very few that kill bacteria in our mouths have been cultivated for scientists to study - can you help us catch some?
Project description
Our mouths are teeming with hundreds of species of bacteria. As they live their lives, these bacteria are impacting ours, sometimes helping us stay healthy, and other times making us sick. To better understand the bacteria in our mouths, and how they impact us, we need to understand their predators and partners - and these include viruses. The viruses that infect bacteria are called bacteriophages, or "phages" for short, and the goal of this project is to catch (isolate and cultivate) and characterize phages that infect oral bacteria. You will be working in the lab, mixing oral bacterial cultures with potential sources of phages to see if you can catch a phage that kills the bacteria, and then characterizing the phages you isolate by electron microscopy and genome sequencing. To learn more about the lab, check out our webpage, kauffmanlab.org, & UB News, www.buffalo.edu/postdoc/news.host.html/content/shared/university/news/ub-reporter-articles/stories/2024/02/kauffman-phages.detail.html.
Project outcome
You will learn methods for isolation, cultivation, sequencing and characterization of bacterial viruses. You will be introduced to electron microscopy for imaging viruses. You will become familiar with using scientific literature to inform your studies. You will learn how to produce and present a scientific poster communicating your research and findings.
Project details
| Length of commitment | About a semester (3-5 Months) with a potential to continue in the Fall semester. |
| Start time | Summer (May/June) |
| In-person, remote, or hybrid? | In-Person Project |
| Level of collaboration | Individual or small group project |
| Benefits | Academic credit Stipend |
| Who is eligible | Freshmen, Sophomores & Juniors who are self-motivated, have genuine interest in phages and desire to explore research as a career path. |
Project mentor
Kathryn Kauffman
Assistant Professor
Oral Biology
Phone: (716) 829-5830
Email: kmkauffm@buffalo.edu
Start the project
- Email the project mentor using the contact information above to express your interest and get approval to work on the project. (Here are helpful tips on how to contact a project mentor.)
- After you receive approval from the mentor to start this project, click the button to start the digital badge. (Learn more about ELN's digital badge options.)
Preparation activities
Once you begin the digital badge series, you will have access to all the necessary activities and instructions. Your mentor has indicated they would like you to also complete the specific preparation activities below. Please reference this when you get to Step 2 of the Preparation Phase.
A) Email the project mentor using the contact information above to express your interest and get approval to work on the project.
B) After you receive approval from the mentor to start this project, click the button to start the digital badge.
C)Activities:
1. Watch the BBC video "The Virus that Cures" (49min) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WXnzS7dYks]
2. Watch the Kurzgesagt video "The Deadliest Being on Planet Earth – The Bacteriophage" (7 min) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI3tsmFsrOg]
3. Read the journal article by Szymon Szafrański "The human oral phageome" [https://doi.org/10.1111/prd.12363]
4. Write a summary report that includes one paragraph on each of the introductory materials and one final summary paragraph. For each of the 3 paragraphs on the three introductory materials, please include: 1) a description of what fact or concept or thing you learned you found most interesting, 2) what you found most surprising and why you found that surprising, and 3) what new questions you had after watching/reading the material. Conclude with a paragraph about what scientific question you might be able to contribute to answering by doing your ELN project, based on what you learned in the introductory materials.
Canyoucatchawildbacteriophagecultivateitandcharacterizeitsgenome_79406182_Periodontology20002021SzafraskiThehumanoralphageome.pdf | Powered by Box
D) Complete necessary laboratory safety trainings.
Keywords
microbiology, viruses, phages, bacteriophages, bacteria, virology, oral biology, ecology