Undergraduate students from our Biosciences Department have joined forces with some of our leading academics, as well as colleagues from Northumbria and Liverpool Universities to identify two defence systems that protect bacteria from viruses.

As a part of a microbiology workshop, our students were tasked with isolating new bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) for the research. Nearly 100 of our undergraduates, who were in the final years of their BSc or MBiol degrees, collected bacteriophages from the River Wear, College ponds and other waterways around Durham for the study. The bacteriophages collected by our students were then tested against E. coli bacteria to check the strength of the E. coli defence systems in providing protection against the viruses. The researchers found that the two defence systems worked side by side in a complementary manner to protect the bacteria.

This type of research-led teaching aims to blend important practical skills with academic knowledge, which makes our student learning experience directly relevant to current scientific endeavours