FARMINGTON — A small water sample from a peat bog in Chesterville captivates the attention of students in the biotechnology program at Foster Career and Technical Education Center.

One of 38 tests on samples recently taken from local water sources, it’s the only one to show potential results for identification of a new virus but it will be months before they know for sure.

“It’s a hit or miss,” Kristy Macomber of Jay, a senior from Spruce Mountain North Campus, said of the work that requires lots of patience. “We can do all this work and have no end result.”

Last year, a potential discovery of a virus the class found had already been identified three years earlier, teacher David Nordstrom said.

For students interested in futures in the medical, science and forensic fields, the biotechnology program, the only one in the state, teaches techniques beyond what they can experience in biology class where the experiment is set up to work, he said.

Carefully checking Petri dishes, swabbing strains of E. coli bacteria, and extracting pinpricks of specimen from a plaque, or culture of viruses, the students confidently set about the work using the classroom’s biological safety cabinet, which creates a zone of sterile air to protect their experiment. It’s a process that requires several rounds of repeated steps and much patience, they said.

They use DNA cloning techniques to help identify the virus from their genetic code. The students will turn over their work for help with genetic sequencing from the University of Southern Maine, he said. He doesn’t expect that to happen until at least February. The students will then compare the sequencing results with national viral databases to see if they have actually discovered a new virus.

Nordstrom recently received a Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics grant for $2,000 from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology that will help pay for the sequencing work and other materials.

Biotechnology, a growing industry, fits the state STEM initiative that provides knowledge and skills for Maine students in those four areas.

Seven students from Spruce Mountain High School and Mt. Blue are involved in the elective class, Macomber said. The class meets every other day for three class periods at Mt. Blue High School, earning three credits for the course. Six of the students indicated they are on the path to careers in health and forensics.

Macomber is joined by Tammy Chase, Natashia Couture and Natalie Couture, all of Jay, and Andrew Gagnon of Livermore Falls. Mt. Blue participants include Erin Foss and Jackie Chan, she said.

Nordstrom, who teaches science half time for Mt. Blue and the biotechnology class half time for the Foster center, made requests for the program years ago. A pilot program was formed four years ago.

The safety cabinet and other equipment was donated to the Foster program last year when Nordstrom’s mentor, Lucy Levesque, retired and the program at Capital Area Technical Center was shut down.

abryant@sunjournal.com