Students interested in research at Rowan College at Burlington County (RCBC) participated in collecting, isolating, naming, and annotating unique bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) through the Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) program during the 2025-26 academic year. Assistant Biology Professor Laurie Shannon Meadows, the principal investigator on the grant through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), led the team of students and fellow biology program members, Laboratory Technician Susan Maynard, and Assistant Biology Professor Anne Tokazewski, through the inaugural year as the first two-year school in New Jersey to be a part of the SEA-PHAGES program.
During the fall 2025 semester, as part of the Phage Discovery course, six students isolated novel (previously unknown) bacteriophages from soil samples, visualized the phage particles in scanning electron micrographs, and extracted phage genomic DNA for sequencing. The students were allowed to name their newly discovered phages, which are now included in the Actinobacteriophage Database (phagesdb.org) as AdoptaAdorbs, LittleRon, Oppalora, MurphyJoseph, Spain, and Sporco.
Two of the phage genomes, MurphyJoseph and Sporco, were manually annotated during the spring 2026 semester, as part of the Phage Bioinformatics course. Eleven students participated in this process, which involved examining each of the 95-98 different phage genes and determining the exact location of the gene in the phage genome, and, when possible, predicting the function of the protein encoded by each gene.
The RCBC SEA-PHAGE students prepared a scientific poster documenting their findings and submitted a poster abstract to the annual HHMI SEA Virtual Symposium. As a result of the quality of the abstract, the students were among only six student research groups out of over 150 invited to give a 10-minute scientific talk at the symposium.
In addition to the SEA Virtual Symposium, the poster was shared at three other poster symposia held at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, and RCBC.
Members of the RCBC SEA-TEAM have shared information about bacteriophages with introductory biology students and local high school students. They have also worked interdepartmentally with RCBC's Dr. Tiffany Ruocco and her graphic design students, who created cartoon characters for each bacteriophage.
Over the summer, two students will be manually annotating the genomes of Oppalora and AdoptaAdorbs. Results from all four annotated genomes will be published in GenBank, and genome announcements will be submitted to microPublication Biology (micropublication.org) following successful genome annotation QC and review by the HHMI SEA-PHAGES team.
To learn more about SEA-PHAGES at Rowan College at Burlington County and other opportunities in the biology program, visit rcbc.edu/biology/associate-science.
