Secondary school students Misha Hegde and Mia Maurer are working since 1.5 years to find a targeted way to combat the plant pathogen Rhizobium rhizogenes. Specifically, they are investigating whether bacteriophages can be used as biological pesticides. They came to EMBL in Heidelberg to use advanced imaging techniques – SEM at the EMCF and cryo-ET at the IC, as well as to do sequencing at the genomics core facility. Georg Wolff from Simone Mattei’s team was happy to support the cryo-tomography and help with the structure determination of the phage’s tail region.

With their project ‘Bacteria on the Menu 2.0’ Mischa and Mia won ‘Jugend forscht’ at the state level and will now compete in the national competition. CONGRATULATIONS!

‘Jugend forscht’ is a German-wide initiative that encourages and supports school students interested in scientific projects in the areas of life science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

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