Dirt to Medicine
Location
CoLab, OCB 100
Start Date
28-4-2017 11:00 AM
End Date
28-4-2017 12:45 PM
Document Type
Poster
Description
Antibiotics have been used to treat many pathogens for several decades now, however, for some pathogens all known antibiotics are resisted. This is a problem that only becomes worse over the years as more pathogens develop a resistance to antibiotics. It was my goal to discover a new antibiotic to help treat at least one of the ESKAPE pathogens, the known antibiotic resistant pathogens. I started my research by choosing soil from the front yard of my parent’s farm house hoping that soil rarely in contact with people would provide results. I plated overcrowded plates of diluted soil to determine which colonies were creating a zone of inhibition (circle surrounding a colony with no growth). Several small colonies were creating zones and I chose the ten colonies that were the most crowded to patch plate. I used the cavalier method of proof plating with laboratory safe ESKAPE pathogens to determine if my candidates inhibited growth. I tested all ten of my candidates on five of the ESKAPE pathogens and one candidate inhibited the growth of Enterococcus faecalis. I created a streak plate of the candidate and was able to rid of a filamentous bacterium enough to use a single colony of my candidate to develop another streak plate. The second streak plate was a pure culture. I hope to test the genetic properties of my candidate, and send to Yale University for detailed information. At the end of my research I hope that my candidate can help people.
Dirt to Medicine
CoLab, OCB 100
Antibiotics have been used to treat many pathogens for several decades now, however, for some pathogens all known antibiotics are resisted. This is a problem that only becomes worse over the years as more pathogens develop a resistance to antibiotics. It was my goal to discover a new antibiotic to help treat at least one of the ESKAPE pathogens, the known antibiotic resistant pathogens. I started my research by choosing soil from the front yard of my parent’s farm house hoping that soil rarely in contact with people would provide results. I plated overcrowded plates of diluted soil to determine which colonies were creating a zone of inhibition (circle surrounding a colony with no growth). Several small colonies were creating zones and I chose the ten colonies that were the most crowded to patch plate. I used the cavalier method of proof plating with laboratory safe ESKAPE pathogens to determine if my candidates inhibited growth. I tested all ten of my candidates on five of the ESKAPE pathogens and one candidate inhibited the growth of Enterococcus faecalis. I created a streak plate of the candidate and was able to rid of a filamentous bacterium enough to use a single colony of my candidate to develop another streak plate. The second streak plate was a pure culture. I hope to test the genetic properties of my candidate, and send to Yale University for detailed information. At the end of my research I hope that my candidate can help people.
Comments
The faculty supervisor for this project is Heather Seitz, Biology.