Close Encounters of the Phage Kind

For months, we’ve worked to find and observe phages. After some initial bad luck, I found a phage and was able to steadily work to progress through a series of tests and purifications. Recently, I finally came face to face with the beast itself.

I chose the title of this post because to me, phage hunting is like alien hunting. In the movie, many people become obsessed with tracking an elusive and unknown object. As the movie draws to a climax, they are able to come face to face with it – the spaceship – a sight that satisfies all their wildest dreams about it. I’ve been completely obsessed with finding and hunting this phage. Like a hunter tracking a bear, I saw the claw marks on the trees, the lysed plates, but never encountered it…until now:

Due to its ridged long tail (which reminds me of a screw) and the ability of a phage to “possess” a bacterium and use it to propagate, I named it Screwtape. 🙂

2 comments

  1. allenkarstens

    Hahahaha! I love the name of the post (and the phage too) puns are hilarious! (When in good taste) But your phages seem a lot clearer and more defined than mine looked, but that might be because my grid ripped and she was somehow able to still find a picture!

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