Genome

By:  Rohan Deshpande

If you have ever attended one of The Gatton Academy’s Preview Days, the Genome program should sound familiar. This program, also known as Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES), is one of the more interesting opportunities offered by the Academy. The Genome program is designed for those interested in microbiology. It gives both wet and dry lab experience, but the long hours and demanding course load can be challenging unless you are very interested in the topic. However, if you love virology and microbiology, this is probably the best experience you can get. The Genome program is a rare experience as it requires a real wet lab that can only be provided by university-level research complex.

The Genome program is listed in WKU’s class catalog as Biology 275. It counts as a biology elective and gives two credit hours. However, that number is misleading—Genome was the most time consuming of all my classes at Gatton. On paper, it was two hours in the afternoon on Tuesdays and Thursdays. However, due to the nature of the class, one may come in far more often. The goal of the class is to isolate a novel bacteriophage. This process involves taking a soil sample, drawing out the phages in the soil, isolating a single type of phage, and extracting its genetic information. This requires growing phages on bacterial lawns, which is requires a different amount of time for each phage. Some plates are ready in 24 hours, others require more than 48. For this reason, I often found myself coming in almost every day to ensure proper phage growth. However, at the end of the class, you certainly feel a sense of accomplishment, as all the time and effort you spent pays off with finding your very own phage.

Naomi Rowland, Dr. Claire Rinehart, and Dr. Rodney King are excellent professors for this class. Mrs. Rowland, who started this past fall, has been Biotechnology Center Coordinator since 2009. Dr. Rinehart has been with Western Kentucky University’s Biology Department since 1988. Dr. King has been leading this program since its start at WKU and is the 2014 recipient of Kentucky Academy of Science Distinguished College or University Teacher Award. This class, while taxing, is an excellent opportunity for one interested in microbiology and virology and if you desire wet lab and research experience, I highly recommend the Genome program.