(Neb.)-Students Drawn To CSC To Search For Organisms Wendy
Jamison and Jocelyn Utecht look for signs of the bacteriophage
on an agar plate. (Photo by Justin Haag) (Chadron)-Chadron State
College students are often drawn to northwest Nebraska for its
hunting opportunities. For a certain group of students on
campus, however, a big buck or a tom turkey is not the object of
their pursuits. Rather, they are hunting area soils for the
elusive bacteriophage, or phage for short. CSC is one of a
limited number of institutions throughout the nation that is
discovering the organisms hidden in the dirt through a special
project of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science
Education Alliance. The program is commonly referred to by its
abbreviation, SEA-PHAGES. Phages are viruses that attack and
infect specific bacteria, usually causing their demise. It is
hoped that the research will lead to breakthroughs in health
care. The students spent the fall 2012 semester collecting soil
and isolating the phages. After finding