A Novel Approach to Combatting Antibiotic-Resistant Pathogens

Location

CoLab, OCB 100

Start Date

28-4-2017 11:00 AM

End Date

28-4-2017 12:45 PM

Document Type

Poster

Description

The world is facing a public health crisis rivaling any experienced by past generations. Many pathogens that cause some of the worst diseases known to humans are becoming or have become resistant to many of the long relied upon antibiotics for treating such diseases, resulting in great human and economic suffering. Rather than trying to combat this crisis, the profit driven pharmaceutical industry that has the resources and funding to seriously take on such an effort, does not find it in their interests monetarily to do so. That is why The Small World Initiative is leading an innovative crowdsourcing research project in collaboration with many undergraduate institutions across the country and the world, in an attempt to discover new antibiotics by isolating potential bacterial candidates found in soil samples by students, and testing them against known antibiotic resistant pathogens. I am one of those student and with efficient practices and limited resources, I am participating in this crucial endeavor while also learning fundamental lab techniques. Using the Cavalier Method on a 50% tryptic soil agar (50% TSA) media in a petri dish to test potential candidates against certain antibiotic-resistant pathogens (the ESKAPE pathogens and others), the candidate I am working with has been found to inhibit the growth of Staphylococcus epidermidis and Mycobacterium smegmatis. The promise of such an approach is incalculable and had the potential to produce some of the most important research in developing new antibiotics.

Comments

The faculty supervisor on this project is Heather Seitz, Biology.

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Apr 28th, 11:00 AM Apr 28th, 12:45 PM

A Novel Approach to Combatting Antibiotic-Resistant Pathogens

CoLab, OCB 100

The world is facing a public health crisis rivaling any experienced by past generations. Many pathogens that cause some of the worst diseases known to humans are becoming or have become resistant to many of the long relied upon antibiotics for treating such diseases, resulting in great human and economic suffering. Rather than trying to combat this crisis, the profit driven pharmaceutical industry that has the resources and funding to seriously take on such an effort, does not find it in their interests monetarily to do so. That is why The Small World Initiative is leading an innovative crowdsourcing research project in collaboration with many undergraduate institutions across the country and the world, in an attempt to discover new antibiotics by isolating potential bacterial candidates found in soil samples by students, and testing them against known antibiotic resistant pathogens. I am one of those student and with efficient practices and limited resources, I am participating in this crucial endeavor while also learning fundamental lab techniques. Using the Cavalier Method on a 50% tryptic soil agar (50% TSA) media in a petri dish to test potential candidates against certain antibiotic-resistant pathogens (the ESKAPE pathogens and others), the candidate I am working with has been found to inhibit the growth of Staphylococcus epidermidis and Mycobacterium smegmatis. The promise of such an approach is incalculable and had the potential to produce some of the most important research in developing new antibiotics.