Hampden-Sydney has joined a select national group of 60 colleges and universities in the Science Education Alliance (SEA) of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), a leading organization in the funding of biomedical research.  The SEA brings together students and faculty from member institutions in a year-long laboratory course in understanding the genetics of bacteriophage, or viruses that infect bacteria.  Starting in the 2011-12 academic year, H-SC students will take part in isolating and characterizing bacteriophage from the environment, sequencing and analyzing one of the isolated genomes, and sharing results with not just other SEA members but the scientific community at large via GenBank, the depository for genetic information maintained by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

In being accepted as an Associate Member of the SEA, Hampden-Sydney joins fellow liberal arts colleges like Gettysburg College and Smith College, fellow Virginia institutions including James Madison and William and Mary, and large research intensive institutions including Brown and Ohio State in a large national experiment whose goal is the improvement of how science is taught in the nation’s colleges and universities.