The Search for the Next Great Antibiotic
Location
CoLab, OCB 100
Start Date
27-4-2018 12:00 PM
Document Type
Poster
Description
The worldwide problem of antibiotic resistance and lack of development of new antibiotics has led to the declining supply of effective antibiotics. The Small World Initiative is a program that brings discovery-based research into student laboratories across the world. Students use locally sourced soil to isolate bacteria and assess its potential antibiotic activity against tester strains in the hopes of discovering a fresh candidate that can be used to produce a new effective drug. Once isolation of the candidate is obtained and tested, the next steps include metabolic testing and sequencing to identify the organism. As the majority of widely used antibiotics are discovered from soil, students participating in the Small World Initiative stand a good chance of discovering the next great antibiotic.
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The Search for the Next Great Antibiotic
CoLab, OCB 100
The worldwide problem of antibiotic resistance and lack of development of new antibiotics has led to the declining supply of effective antibiotics. The Small World Initiative is a program that brings discovery-based research into student laboratories across the world. Students use locally sourced soil to isolate bacteria and assess its potential antibiotic activity against tester strains in the hopes of discovering a fresh candidate that can be used to produce a new effective drug. Once isolation of the candidate is obtained and tested, the next steps include metabolic testing and sequencing to identify the organism. As the majority of widely used antibiotics are discovered from soil, students participating in the Small World Initiative stand a good chance of discovering the next great antibiotic.
Comments
The faculty supervisor for this project was Melissa Beaty, Biology.