In 2009, Calvin College was selected by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) to be one of the first 24 schools nationwide to participate in a new science education initiative called the National Genomic Research Initiative. In this program, 20 first year Calvin students make real scientific discoveries by doing research on bacterial viruses, called phage. During the two-semester introductory biology sequence led by biology professors Randall DeJong and John Wertz, students learn techniques from across biology, including microbiology, molecular biology, genomics, ecology, biomedicine, global health/sustainability and bioinformatics.