Day 7 thoughts.  Phagefinders. 

Planned:  Bill will come in for one hour, we will make media and preparations today.  This will include top agar.  If Blake has not plated his phage that he made high titer preps with last year, we could plate these solutions, also.  Today, we will make more plates.  We will try making plates on the countertop since we do not have a hood.  We have plenty of MP buffer, and therefore only need to consider propagation of our Mycobacteria at this time.  Blake will plate his phage isolates from last year.  Plate smegmatis from a single cell colony, teach students to propagate their own cultures.  Also, plate BXZ1 phage that we made high-titer phage from.  Students also need to do some lab-clean up.  Propagate a new smegmatis culture from single colonies.  Have students show me their notebooks.  Ask students to teach each other about what they wrote about. 

Could do: plating of Blakes last year phage, talk about the questions at hand, make plates, prep smegmatis single colony pick; during lunch, I will filter the media and add tween for our smeg culture.  paper discussion, give new questions.  Also, need to go for environmental samples for crypto phage hunting. 

Planning: agarose gel preparation, desired enzyme to cut DNA is?  Ask Reggie to get an M. smegmatis culture going for me. 

Did: 

Dr. Jacob's visit has been documented at Dr. Jacob's first talk with the Phagefinders.

Questions for students:  pairs of students will complete a question, composing a collective paragraph.  1) Describe the different shapes of bacteriophage.  Why do you think these different shapes exist (use the book chapter)?  2) What does a different plaque size and plaque shape tell you about the bacteriophage (use the book chapter)?  3) How are phages D29, BXZ1, TM4 and other mycobacterial phages unique with respect to their plaque sizes and morphologies (use Cell paper & internet). 

Calculations: 20% Tween made by pouring Tween 80 into a conical, and shaking. 

1) Plating of Blake's unknown 1 year old HT phage preps to separate phage from a variety of different plaques. 

2) Presentation of your written paragraphs. 

3) Hunting for fungal phage samples.

4) making plates--we poured outside the hood. 

5) observation of plates we made yesterday, hunting for phage. 

Today, it was visible that we had new phages.  Some of the pictures of our discoveries are shown here. 

Today's materials:   

Pointers:  Overgrown Mycobacteria is not a good choice for plating samples for plaque formation.  It is a good idea to make a list of things to do for the day on a chalk-board/white board at one end of the class, this allows for

We also have an email list that the instructor can use to send hyperlinks and other materials to students via.  Students use email to submit their completed paragraphs. 

How phage sense death?