BIOL 302L Q - Phage Discovery (2 credits)

(Coreq: BIOL 121, BIOL 122 or permission of the instructor) Phage Discovery is the first semester in a sequence of inquiry-based courses designed to provide entry-level science students with an extensive classroom-based research experience. During this course students are tasked with discovering and characterizing a novel bacteriophage, which is a virus that infects bacteria. Laboratory activities include isolation and purification of phage from environmental samples, visualization of these phages using electron microscopy, and analysis of purified viral DNA. The semester culminates with obtaining the DNA sequence of discovered phages. This course is particularly useful for students interested in research. F.