Several months ago, Kevin Szafran scooped up a soil sample from an apartment complex in Dade City, FL. Little did he know this dirt would contain a bacteriophage to be included in a global database.
Szafran, who graduated from the university in May 2022, had the opportunity to participate in the Science Education Alliance (SEA) Phages program, a project the university joined several years ago. Since 2008, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of Pittsburgh have collaborated to facilitate this bacteriophage research initiative for biology students attending more than 150 colleges and universities. Szafran, a biology major focusing on biomedical science, has been part of the two classes specific to phage discovery and analysis.
“We had to collect three environmental samples from three different locations,” Szafran said of the project. “The phage I discovered was from the soil of a flowerbed with fertilizer. I collected it the day after it had rained, so it was moist and seemed like a viable location. For me, only one out of my three samples contained a phage.”
Szafran explained the steps following the sample collection.
“We then go through rounds of amplifying, purifying, and isolating a bacteriophage, which is essentially a virus that infects a bacterial host,” he said. “We send off the sample to the University of Pittsburgh for further analysis in which they sequence the genome to determine which family of bacteriophage it belongs to.”
Phage process
Some phages can cause benign bacteria to become pathogenic (disease-producing) by transferring in pathogenic genes. Other phages use the bacteria as a host to make more viruses before killing them.
The two Saint Leo courses focused on practical research in the use of bacteriophages are BIO 100: Intro to Research – Phage Hunters and BIO 200: Phages II. In addition, a third course related to phages was introduced to biology students in the 2021-2022 academic year. In BIO 300: SEA-Genes, students clone phage genes and express their proteins, ultimately trying to assign a function to those genes.
Szafran named the phage he discovered “Upsilon” in recognition of Saint Leo’s Upsilon Theta chapter of the Kappa Sigma fraternity to which he belongs.
“Jovita” is a phage discovered by junior Gabby Fonseca. She took her sample from an area near a tree stump on the banks of Lake Jovita at University Campus. Among the other Saint Leo phages are “BlueRugrat,” found by Kaishon Showers, and “Katzastrophic” found by Emily Katz.
“It has been a rewarding experience,” Szafran said. “The work I’ve put into this and getting my name on a nationally recognized website is definitely an amazing opportunity. Publications are the epitome of research and are so instrumental in helping me pursue further education.”
Dr. Iain Duffy, an associate professor of biology in the Department of Natural and Applied Sciences, brought the courses to the university four years ago. Duffy teaches all three classes related to phage discovery and analysis.
“Only a small number of phages have been discovered, but how they function has yet to be determined in many cases,” Duffy explained. “These are not your typical college classes. This is real research being done on viruses that nobody has ever seen before. Plus, we have many freshmen and sophomores taking these courses, giving them a leg up as they advance in the program.”
Along with hands-on experiential learning, students’ names are published on a dedicated database webpage hosted on the PhagesDB website. They also may present their findings at the national SEA Symposium and the Florida Academy of Sciences’ annual conference, as well as during Saint Leo’s Academic Excellence Day.
According to Duffy, numerous Saint Leo graduates have applied their experience with this project to their careers. Several have gone on to work at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, FL. A few alumni now work in the cancer center’s cell therapy lab where they are helping to develop cancer treatments, while others have participated in the SPARK internship program at Moffitt.
“The students are becoming much more confident in their lab techniques and are using this experience in their careers,” Duffy said of completing the phage classes.
As for Szafran’s future plans, his goal is to attend medical school and become a physician, potentially specializing in cardiology.
Historical research by Dr. Karen Hannel of the College of Arts and Sciences and her husband, Dr. Eric Hannel, an adjunct instructor with Saint Leo, prompted the state of Florida to approve the placement of an official marker to note that a vibrant township once existed north of University Campus in the 1800s. The town of Chipco was a trading post established by white settlers and was named for a Seminole chief who actually lived nearby, but separately, with some members of his tribe for a time after the mid-1850s. The white town grew to have a nearby railway link, lumber-planing mill, grist mill, school, and post office, along with farms. The Pasco County (FL) town reached the peak of its commercial prominence in the 1880s, but disappeared by 1909 after a series of economic reversals. Chief Chipco and his band had long since moved to a different locale in mid-Florida, and the chief died in 1881 at more than 100 years of age, according to a newspaper account. The Hannels continue to research this settlement, as its trajectory illustrates so much about the racial interactions, intermittent wars, and economic developments of 19th-century Florida.
Dr. Iain Duffy, a microbiologist and member of the science faculty at University Campus, is president of the Florida Academy of Sciences and is now in the second year of a two-year term. The academy is comprised of scholars from the life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences, computer and mathematical sciences, and science teaching, and publishes a quarterly journal.
Dr. Leon Mohan and Dr. Deneˊ Williamson of the Tapia College of Business were published in late 2019 in the International Journal of Sport, Exercise and Physical Education with their article “Youth Sport Participation as a Result of Social Identity Theory.” The article describes survey research conducted in a South Florida city with youths involved with sports through various community organizations. In particular, the researchers zeroed in on children ages 9 to 13, who were primarily African American and Hispanic, to see what role social factors played in getting and keeping the youths involved in sports. The short-term objective was to help associations find influences that can be maintained to get and keep children physically active. Sports that parents and guardians were familiar with, sports played by famous athletes, and sports played by friends and peers were motivating influences. The business professors included work by undergraduate student John-Paul West in their research and publication.
Dr. Matthew Tapie, theology faculty member and director of the Saint Leo University Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies, was invited in February by Spring Hill College in Alabama to deliver a talk on a particularly difficult point in Catholic and Jewish relations. Since 2018, Tapie has been speaking in academic settings and published in academic theological journals on the new controversy about the forced religious conversion of a young boy named Edgardo Mortaro in Bologna, Italy, in 1858. The child was being raised by a Jewish family, in accordance with their own faith, when the Catholic Church learned the boy secretly had been given a Catholic baptism when he was an infant and facing illness. A maid employed by the family performed the baptism without permission from or the knowledge of the baby’s parents. The woman presumably was leaning on her own Catholic teaching as motivation and feared for the soul of the baby if he did not recover. The boy was forcibly removed from his home on the order of Pope Pius IX when the Church eventually learned of this, and despite an international scandal, the church never backed down and instead raised the child.
Dr. Moneque Walker-Pickett, professor and associate chair of the undergraduate criminal justice program, was selected for a prestigious fellowship program in higher education. She is one of only 38 professionals to be included in the 2020-2021 American Council on Education Fellows Program. The objective of the program is to provide learning opportunities that condense years of practical higher education experience into a curriculum of a single year. Fellows receive strategic planning training, make numerous visits to other campuses, and take part in interactive sessions. Upon completion of the program, fellows return to their own campuses better equipped to address evolving challenges in higher education. Walker-Pickett joins a diverse fellowship class comprised of individuals from Georgetown University, Purdue University, the U.S. Air Force Academy, among other institutions. In addition to holding a doctorate in sociology, Walker-Pickett holds a law degree and worked previously as an attorney. She became a full-time member of the Saint Leo University faculty at University Campus in August 2012.