The contents of Room 201 in DSU’s Science Building appears rather ordinary on the surface: a folding table and chairs positioned inside the main entrance to collect blood samples, a “swear tally” (accompanied by a folded sheet of paper dictating the size of the fine, to be collected at the end of the semester, for an array of popular curses), and four student interns draped in lab coats staring down into cameras and microscopes. Yet, for all of the lab’s quirky character, it holds an excitement that is difficult to overstate. Although it’s tempting to blame the room’s aura on the 175-some-odd blood samples culturing L-form bacteria within the small lab, that would be only half of the story.

Brent Hunt’s mission began in 2014 following years of failed joint replacements, sabotaged by infections that doctors couldn’t quite pinpoint. As he began studying the bacteria levels in his own body and testing his own blood, Hunt developed a groundbreaking technique for culturing specific types of bacteria that operate without cell walls. According to Hunt, studying these bacteria—known as L-form bacteria—could lead to treatments, and potentially cures, for a variety of ailments, from auto-immune disorders to chronic fatigue and migraines.

With a patent pending for his method of culturing and observing L-form bacteria, Hunt founded Soft Cell Research and quickly partnered with DSU to continue searching for the connections between disease and these previously unseen bacteria.

To date, the mutually beneficial public-private partnership has processed blood samples from over 2,000 donors and discovered over 300 new strains of bacteria. However, according to Hunt, the lab’s initial findings did lead to push-back throughout the scientific community. Because the findings indicated that bacteria existed in human blood, which was previously thought to be sterile, medical scholars originally dismissed the discoveries as flawed. It wasn’t until last year, when Stanford University produced a study corroborating DSU and Soft Cell’s results, that the findings began to truly be taken seriously. Almost a year later, the partnership is benefiting from collaboration with Oxford University, the Quadram Institute, and other organizations.

Additionally, the U.S. Economic Development Agency recently awarded a $570,000 grant to DSU and Soft Cell to continue their research. The grant, Hunt says, will help the lab transition to a larger, more well-equipped lab in Atwood Innovation Plaza on DSU’s campus.

Beyond the partnership’s scientific accomplishments, Hunt is also quick to point out the benefits to the students who work as interns in the lab.

“This is the only place in the world where students can study L-form bacteria. You can’t do this at Harvard. You can’t do this at Johns Hopkins,” Hunt says, noting that, because the procedure for studying the bacteria is protected as intellectual property, DSU’s students have a unique leg up on graduate school applications. Medical schools across the country have taken notice, according to Hunt, who notes that many of the lab’s student interns go on to receive offers to pursue joint M.D.-Ph.D. programs at universities interested in their research experience.

Working in the lab is more than an impressive résumé-booster for students, though. The experience allows students to marry what they’re learning in the classroom with actual application, which helps “bring everything together,” according to Hunt. Because students help perform all of the culturing and analysis, they’re able to see how the theory they’ve learned plays out in a physical lab. Additionally, although half of the lab focuses on bacteria culturing and analysis, half is dedicated to a state-of-the-art genetics lab. The combination of the two halves facilitates comparisons between donors’ bacteria-makeup and DNA while allowing students to work across various domains within biology and chemistry.

Back in the lab, one of the student interns finishes photographing a petri dish, hangs up his lab coat, and scoops up a pile of biology text- books from one of the room’s crowded counters. As Hunt and I step out of the student’s way, Hunt notes that participating in the lab truly defines DSU’s active learning approach to education. He then goes on to explain the true goal of the research: “We don’t want to treat people. We want to cure people.”