Are you interested in discovering new bacteria and phage in the microbiome?

Phase Genomics is creating a database of phage and the bacteria they infect. Viruses that infect bacteria, phage are the most abundant microbes on earth.  At the same time, we know very little about the bacteria that phage infect.

Unlike other forms of genome sequencing, Phase Genomics’ technology links phage genomes with their bacterial hosts and can reconstruct both bacterial and phage genomes and their interactions. This is important because the problem of antimicrobial resistance is leading researchers to investigate phage as alternatives to antibiotics. If phage will be used to treat infections, it will be important to match the right kinds of phage with their bacterial targets.

Your class(es) can help participate in this project by collecting and contributing a few samples. Phase Genomics is especially interested in poop samples from a wide variety of animals (wild animals, farm animals, zoo animals, exotic pets, iguanas, turtles, fish, and worms).

In return, you’ll get lots and lots of genome data that you can use for bioinformatics investigations and discovering new microbial genomes, and new viruses that live in the world around us.

How will this work?

1.     Email me (sandra@digitalworldbiology.com) and include the name of the faculty member who will be leading the project, the name of your college, and the kinds of samples you’d like to collect. 
2.     If the samples are promising, Phase Genomics will send you a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) to sign.  This guarantees that Phase Genomics has the right to include the data in their database and you have the right to work with the data from your sample and publish results.
3.     Once Phase Genomics receives the signed MTA, they will send you a kit for collecting and mailing the sample.  When they receive the sample, they will sequence all the bacteria, phage, and plasmids, in the sample and use assembly tools to put the sequences together.  In many cases, you’ll get whole genomes of bacteria and phage.

You can read more about this project  and read about the microbiomes of two cats: Lil Bub and Danny and take a look at some example data.

Visit a dashboard with the data from Lil Bub.  You'll find whole genome sequences, data from viruses, plasmids, and their hosts, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes, and metabolism information.  A single microbiome sample can provide enough data for years of bioinformatics investigations!  Plus, you can identify hundreds of phage-host and plasmid-host interactions.

You can also check out my presentation - Caturday Microbiomes - Thinking outside the Litter Box with Danny and Lil Bub  to see some examples of data analysis.