The SEA-PHAGES Program
SEA-PHAGES (Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science) is a two-semester, discovery-based undergraduate research course that begins with simple digging in the soil to find new viruses, but progresses through a variety of microbiology techniques and eventually to complex genome annotation and bioinformatic analyses.
The program aims to increase undergraduate interest and retention in the biological sciences through immediate immersion in authentic, valuable, yet accessible research. By finding and naming their own bacteriophages, students develop a sense of project ownership and have a ready-made personal research project at a fraction of the cost of traditional apprentice-based research programs. Some of the positive effects of the SEA-PHAGES program have been reported here.
SEA-PHAGES is jointly administered by Graham Hatfull's group at the University of Pittsburgh and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science Education division.
Expired MTAs
Written by
on Oct. 24, 2023 .October SEA-PHAGES Email
Written by
on Oct. 9, 2023 .Dear SEA community,
This is our October communication:
SECTION DATA
If you haven’t already, please post section data to your institution page at seaphages.org. (This is a separate request from the section data asked for the PITS study.)
https://seaphages.org/section/add/current/
ARCHIVE TUBES
Deadline to make a request for prompt shipping is October 16, 2023. We will begin shipping archive tubes as soon as requests come in. If you are off schedule, you can still request tubes with an additional comment for shipping instructions.
ARCHIVE PROTOCOL
Before you prep lysates for archiving, please read the new improved protocol that contains a new video link here.
https://phagesdb.org/protocols/96/
Make sure you create any needed phage pages on PhagesDB as soon as possible, as these must be approved before they are included in your Archive Sheet for sample prep.
MONTHLY VIRTUAL FACULTY MEETING
This month’s meeting is scheduled for October 27, and will feature breakout rooms for updates and discussing your questions on Phage Discovery protocols, GENES protocols, and QUBES Resources.
More info available on the program website timeline: https://seaphages.org/faculty/information/#timeline
SIGN-UP FOR PHAGE GENOMICS WORKSHOP
The Phage Genomics workshop for the newest cohort of SEA faculty is scheduled for Dec 4 – 8, 2023. If you instruct (or will instruct) Phage Genomics but have never attended this workshop, you can request to attend using the following link, and we will do our very best to accommodate you. This registration closes October 13.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SEAPhageGenomics2023
We hope phage work at your school is going well! We are excited to see what discoveries are made this year!
Our very best, the SEA Team
This email is an official communication from the HHMI SEA-PHAGES program.
Sequencing Status, 2023-24
Written by
on Oct. 6, 2023 .Below is a live spreadsheet showing the status of SEA-PHAGES sequencing samples for the 2023-24 academic year. Generally, samples are only listed after they're scheduled for a MiSeq run, so don't worry if the samples you sent haven't appeared yet.
CLICK HERE to open this in a new browser window.