Joshua Dimmick ’15 and Grayland Godfrey ’15 represented Hampden-Sydney’s 2013-14 bacteriophage research class at the annual meeting of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) symposium.  The SEA-PHAGES program unites ~80 institutions across the United States in the common goal of better understanding how bacteriophages have evolved over time (Learn more at http://www.hhmi.org/programs/science-education-alliance and http://www.phagesdb.org).  The symposium was held at HHMI’s state of the art Janelia Farm Research campus in Ashburn, Virginia.

Josh Dimmick, Grayland Godfrey, and H-SC project advisor Dr. Mike Wolyniak

Josh and Grayland presented their genomic characterization of McFly, a bacteriophage of the bacterial species Mycobacterium smegmatis originally discovered on the H-SC campus in 2012 and named by Seth Ayers ’13, a past project participant.  McFly resembles several bacteriophages isolated from across the U.S. but also has unique features such as the code for three tRNA molecules.  By studying McFly along with the phages found at other schools, undergraduates like Josh and Grayland are contributing to authentic research spearheaded by a research group at the University of Pittsburgh that regularly disseminates findings through publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Presentation day!

Talking to multiple colleagues

Josh and Grayland received an Honorable Mention award at the end of the symposium, placing their poster presentation in the top 10 of over 70 student posted presented and placing them in the same tier as students from Johns Hopkins, Brown, and Carnegie-Mellon Universities.  The SEA-PHAGES project will once again be in place at H-SC in the fall as a new group of biology students enrolled in Dr. Wolyniak’s Molecular and Cellular Biology course will attempt to isolate bacteriophage from the environment that target several species of the bacterial genus Bacillus.