James Clemens High School microbiome

This screen grab image is from a video about a new scientific study of the microbiome at the James Clemens High School in Madison, Ala. Scientists at Huntsville's HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology are teaming with students and teachers for the year-long study of the bacteria, viruses and fungi living the school. (James Clemens High School)

Ever wonder what kind of bacteria, fungi and viruses hang out in an American high school? You don't want to know? Well, one Alabama high school will know and share the process of learning in a new research project by Huntsville's HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology.

The school is James Clemens High School in Madison, Ala., and its students have been busily swabbing bleachers, handrails, locker rooms and the cafeteria with sterilized swabs this school year.

To answer the big questions up front, the students aren't expect to find anything dangerous. People have always lived with bacteria, and the relationship has even been a good thing in some cases.

A teacher and student at Madison's James Clemens High School swab the bleachers as part of a study of the schools microbiome being done with the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. (HudsonAlpha Institute)

HudsonAlpha is also working closely with the school and will share findings with it along the way. The final analysis and findings will be published in a peer-reviewed journal when they are finished.

What is a microbiome?

The sum of all the bacteria, fungi and viruses in a place is its microbiome. That's another word for biological environment. Scientists are increasingly interested in the microbiomes of public places, and a HudsonAlpha genetics researcher worked on a recently published study of the New York City subway system called the New York City PathoMap project.

"My research laboratory has had a long-standing interest in metagenomics and environmental genomics," Dr. Shawn Levy, founder and director of HudsonAlpha's Genomics Services Lab, said in a statement.

A student at James Clemens High School in Madison Alabama swaps the track as part of a study of the school's microbiome being done with the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. (HudsonAlpha Institute)

Levy approached Dr. Neil Lamb, HudsonAlpha's vice president for education, with the idea of a microbiome project in Alabama. Lamb worked with James Clemens to create a project that ultimately involved teachers in fields including science, communications, statistics, history and art.

Research meets education

"It was born out of an idea of taking some brand new science that is happening all over the world and that is happening here at HudsonAlpha in studying the microbiome and looking at ways to bridge it into an educational setting," Lamb said. "It is one of the first examples of taking cutting-edge science and putting it into students' hands to help them solve real-world science problems."

Lamb said bacteria has a bad reputation when the truth is we live closely with all kinds of it. Some of it is good.

"This data is something that has never been examined before," said Lamb. "No one has ever looked at the types of bacteria that are present in a school, so this really gives insight into something that a lot of people of wondering but have never actually looked at."

HudsonAlpha is a Huntsville genetics institute focused on research, biotech business incubation and education.