December 14, 2020 – Juni Polansky ’21, Discovers Three Bacteriophages, Names One After Dr. Rosen
Senior Juni Polansky discovered three bacteriophages and named one of them “Yogini” after Research Director Dr. Rosen.
Juni writes, “This phage is named after my research coordinator Dr. Nicole Rosen. She strongly believes in the calming power of yoga and meditation, and thus this phage is called “Yogini.” Yogini is the title used for a female master practitioner of yoga.”
Juni’s research,”Isolation, Sequencing, and Annotation of Novel Bacteriophage,” focused on identifying and isolating several novel samples of bacteriophage to name and add them to the global database. She writes, “With the antibiotic crisis approaching, bacteriophages, viruses that infect and kill bacteria, provide a promising alternative treatment option. In this project, I also performed a genome annotation on a previously sequenced phage, SirSheldon, and wrote a Genome Announcement paper that I am working on getting published.”
The other two phages, “RipRBG” and “Scungilli,” are named after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Juni’s younger sister, respectively.
