01
Students
A paid 8-week summer research internship for RCC students.
Students come to Harvard Medical School Monday through Thursday, learn the bench skills needed for phage experiments, and build a poster from their own samples and data.
An 8-week phage discovery program for RCC students and HMS instructors.
Community Phages is a paid summer research internship at Harvard Medical School. Roxbury Community College students partner with researchers and instructors to isolate environmental bacteriophages, characterize what they find, and present the results.
- Students
- RCC
- Lab home
- HMS Microbiology
- Focus
- Corynephages
- 01 8 weeks summer research internship
- 02 20 hrs/week Monday-Thursday, 9am-2pm
- 03 RCC + HMS community college students in a research lab
- 04 Corynephages environmental phages infecting corynebacteria
Affiliated institutions.
HMS Microbiology, Roxbury Community College, HHMI, and New England Biolabs.
HMS 
Harvard Medical School Department of Microbiology Teaching lab, mentors, and scientific community. RCC 
Roxbury Community College Student partnership and recruitment. HHMI 
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Program support and science education. NEB 
New England Biolabs Program sponsor and funding support, with reagents and sequencing-related resources.
Harvard Medical School Department of Microbiology Teaching lab, mentors, and scientific community. RCC Roxbury Community College Student partnership and recruitment. HHMI Howard Hughes Medical Institute Program support and science education. NEB New England Biolabs Program sponsor and funding support, with reagents and sequencing-related resources. For RCC students and HMS instructors.
Students learn lab methods by working on their own phage samples. Instructors teach the bench work, bioinformatics, troubleshooting, and poster preparation.
Environmental samples, plaques, DNA, posters.
The program starts with pipetting, sterile technique, and sample collection. Students then plate samples, purify phages, prepare lysates, work with DNA, analyze genomes, and present final posters.
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Instructors
HMS instructors teach bench work, bioinformatics, and posters.
Instructors help students learn methods, read experimental results, analyze genomes, and prepare final posters.
The 8-week schedule.
The exact dates change each year, but the structure is stable: field sampling and bench skills first, plaques and lysates next, then micrographs, DNA, genome assembly, figures, and a final poster.
W1 Bootcamp and sampling
Safety, pipetting, sterile technique, host bacteria, lab notebooks, and the first environmental samples.
W2 Plaque hunting
Filtered samples, direct plating, enrichments, bacterial lawns, and first evidence of phages.
W3 Purify and titer
Students pick plaques, purify isolates, calculate titers, and prepare lysates for downstream work.
W4 Image and extract DNA
Electron microscopy, DNA extraction, restriction digests, and scientific meeting exposure.
W5 Ask what the phage can do
Host range, receptors, defense systems, and bacterial strain comparisons turn plaques into questions.
Program schedule
Weekly plan for students and instructors.
Student discoveries become PhagesDB records.
Student isolates can lead to phage names, genome assemblies, PhagesDB records, and final posters.
2025
Spartan
One of the Community Phages discoveries posted through the Harvard institution page.
PhagesDB recordPhagesDB
Harvard phage collection
Community Phages discoveries are represented on the Harvard PhagesDB institution page.
PhagesDB recordFaculty, instructors, and mentors.
HMS faculty, staff, graduate students, postdocs, alumni, RCC partners, and sponsors contribute to the program.
Faculty Scientific direction
Corynephage biology, bacterial evolution, immunity, and host-phage context.
Program Lab and teaching support
Lab setup, safety, sampling, bench work, bioinformatics, and poster support.
Mentors Troubleshooting and student support
Graduate students, postdocs, staff, alumni, and partner instructors support the work.
Meet the current team
Faculty, staff, instructors, mentors, and alumni.