2010-09-25: Viruses That Target Bacteria (part 1)

They are everywhere you look — in the soil, in the ocean, in your backyard. Bacteriophages. They’re viruses that infect bacteria, and they could one day be used to fight off drug-resistant strains of bacteria like tuberculosis. Mark Forsyth, Margaret Saha, and Kurt Williamson (College of William and Mary) lead a group of students into the field every year to find and identify new varieties of “phages.” With Good Reason visits their “phage lab.” It’s one of 36 schools across the country sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the samples they collect — some never before seen — are helping to create one of the largest databases of its kind in the world.