Chadron State College students set sights on phages

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...