The Search
Location
CoLab, OCB 100
Start Date
28-4-2017 1:00 PM
End Date
4-2017 2:45 PM
Document Type
Poster
Description
Antibiotic resistance has become a major problem in the health care world. Antibiotics have been so vast and plentiful in society for the past couple decades that it has caused an antibiotic crisis of diseases becoming antibiotic resistant. A majority of the antibiotic-resistant infections that occur in health care settings are caused by six bacteria which are known as the "ESKAPE pathogens". These diseases that are resistant to antibiotics leave health care workers and their patients at a dead end with no more antibiotics to treat these diseases. The majority of antibiotics in commercial and clinical use today are derived from soil bacteria. In this research project, bacteria was collected and isolated from soil from my front lawn to be further tested to determine if the bacteria in the soil could be used to produce a new antibiotic. In order to do so the soil microbes must be tested against safe relatives of the ESKAPE pathogens. Screening the soil microbe candidates against the tester strains is vital in determining if the candidates are able to inhibit their growth. The ultimate goal is to screen for new antibiotics and contribute to the search for bacterial species that produce antibiotic substances and testing those antibiotics against known tester strains of bacteria.
Image
The Search
CoLab, OCB 100
Antibiotic resistance has become a major problem in the health care world. Antibiotics have been so vast and plentiful in society for the past couple decades that it has caused an antibiotic crisis of diseases becoming antibiotic resistant. A majority of the antibiotic-resistant infections that occur in health care settings are caused by six bacteria which are known as the "ESKAPE pathogens". These diseases that are resistant to antibiotics leave health care workers and their patients at a dead end with no more antibiotics to treat these diseases. The majority of antibiotics in commercial and clinical use today are derived from soil bacteria. In this research project, bacteria was collected and isolated from soil from my front lawn to be further tested to determine if the bacteria in the soil could be used to produce a new antibiotic. In order to do so the soil microbes must be tested against safe relatives of the ESKAPE pathogens. Screening the soil microbe candidates against the tester strains is vital in determining if the candidates are able to inhibit their growth. The ultimate goal is to screen for new antibiotics and contribute to the search for bacterial species that produce antibiotic substances and testing those antibiotics against known tester strains of bacteria.
Comments
The faculty supervisor on this project is Jamie Cunningham, Biology.