Each spring, the College of William and Mary invites Virginia participants in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (HHMI SEA-PHAGES) project to their campus for a meeting for students to share their research work on the isolation and characterization of novel bacteriophages from the environment.  This year, Hampden-Sydney students Josh Dimmick ’15, Grayland Godfrey ’15, and Taylor Meinhardt ’16 accompanied Professor Mike Wolyniak to Williamsburg and gave the College’s presentation on Archie14, a Bacillus thuringiensis bacteriophage discovered by Stephen Woodall ’15 on the H-SC campus.

Taylor Meinhardt ’16, Josh Dimmick ’15, and Grayland Godfrey ’15 give their presentation to the William and Mary audience

The SEA-PHAGES program has expanded to include over 70 institutions nationwide and more than 4,800 undergraduates conducting original research on bacteriophage genomics and evolution based out of the University of Pittsburgh.  Participating institutions include small liberal arts colleges like Hampden-Sydney, Smith, and Gettysburg and large research universities like Brown, Ohio State, and Washington State working towards a common research goal of a better understanding of bacteriophage diversity.  In Virginia, the SEA-PHAGES project is done at Hampden-Sydney, William and Mary, Mary Washington, James Madison, Virginia Commonwealth, and Old Dominion.

Dimmick, Godfrey, Thomas Jefferson, and Meinhardt on the central campus of William and Mary. Given as a gift by the University of Virginia, Jefferson’s statue at William and Mary, his alma mater, faces Charlottesville and the university he would eventually found in the latter years of his life.