01 Week 1
Bootcamp and sampling
Safety, pipetting, sterile technique, host bacteria, lab notebooks, and the first environmental samples.
- farm samples
- pipettes
- C. glutamicum
Eight weeks from sample to poster.
The calendar changes each year, but the summer follows a practical weekly plan: safety and pipetting, environmental sampling, plaques, purification, titers, microscopy, DNA, genome comparisons, and final posters.
- 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.
Community Phages is based in HMS Microbiology and run with Roxbury Community College, with support from 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. From field sampling to final poster.
Students learn core techniques, collect samples, isolate phages, analyze data, and prepare final posters.
02 Week 2
Plaque hunting
Filtered samples, direct plating, enrichments, bacterial lawns, and first evidence of phages.
- lawns
- plaques
- enrichments
03 Week 3
Purify and titer
Students pick plaques, purify isolates, calculate titers, and prepare lysates for downstream work.
- purification
- titers
- lysates
04 Week 4
Image and extract DNA
Electron microscopy, DNA extraction, restriction digests, and scientific meeting exposure.
- EM grids
- DNA digest
- BBM
05 Week 5
Ask what the phage can do
Host range, receptors, defense systems, and bacterial strain comparisons turn plaques into questions.
- mutants
- defense
- receptors
06 Week 6
Assemble genomes
Geneious, BLAST, genome assembly, annotation, and figures connect each phage to its relatives.
- sequencing
- Geneious
- BLAST
07 Week 7
Posters and figures
Phage names, figures, trees, posters, and data interpretation before final presentations.
- posters
- figures
- phylogeny
08 Week 8
Present and share
Practice talks, final posters, PhagesDB records where appropriate, reflection, and lab cleanup.
- poster session
- PhagesDB
- reflection
A typical lab day.
Students are usually on campus Monday-Thursday from 9am-2pm. Most days include setup, bench work or bioinformatics, notebook/data time, and discussion of the next experiment.
Set up the experiment
Review the protocol, the expected result, and how the work relates to host bacteria or phage biology.
Run the work
Plate samples, pick plaques, prepare lysates, run gels, image phages, compare strains, or analyze sequence data.
Record and interpret
Record observations, calculations, gels, plaques, images, and next steps while the work is still fresh.
Final posters.
Students collect samples, purify phages, document measurements, analyze DNA sequence when available, and use those data in final posters.