The human gut is home to diverse microbes and has one of the highest density of microbes on Earth. The trillions of microbes that live within us are incredibly important for human health. Yet, we know little about these microbes and their viral predators and symbiotic partners. Our lab works with highly abundant gut anaerobic bacteria (or anaerobes) and bacterial viruses that infect them, also known as bacteriophages or phages. Students will be isolating and cultivating phages from various wastewater samples that infect gut anaerobic bacteria. This will allow us to characterize the interplay between bacteria and phages in the human gut using microbiology and genomic approaches. Isolated gut phages will be characterized through infection assays, microscopy, and sequencing to compare and contrast their biological functions.

This project will lead to a panel of novel phages that infect against gut bacteria with corresponding data on their structural morphology through microscopy and genome sequences. This will allow us to prioritize and identify phages of interest for characterizations to generate host range data. The resulting data will be used in a publication on phages that infect the most abundant group of bacteria in the human gut. 

• The student will learn fundamental microbiology techniques to isolate, cultivate, and characterize anaerobic bacteriophages while contributing data to a publication.
• The student will learn how to write detailed records for experimental work using an electronic notebook system.
• The student will gain critical thinking skills and exposure to the scientific method.
• The student will create a poster and present their work at a local meeting.
• The student will participate in group meetings and journal clubs. 

Read this review paper on phages in the human gut: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28461690/

Department of Microbiology and Immunology, phages, bacteria, anaerobes, human gut microbiome