Location
CoLab, COM 100
Start Date
1-5-2025 12:15 PM
Document Type
Poster
Description
Antibiotic resistance is a growing health crisis, caused by the misuse and overuse of antibiotics in both human medicine and agriculture. Exacerbating this issue is the stagnation in new antibiotic discovery since the 1980s. To address the urgent need for new antibiotics, I completed this study aimed at identifying new antibiotic-producing microbes from a soil sample collected in my backyard. Using a serial dilution method, microbes were isolated and screened against safe relatives of the ESKAPE pathogens to determine whether or not they exhibit antimicrobial properties, as indicated by zones of inhibition. My initial trial did not yield any promising candidates, prompting a second round of isolation and testing. This study highlights the importance of continued exploration for new antibiotics to combat resistance and expand treatment options for infectious diseases.
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Investigating Soil Microbes for Antibiotic Discovery
CoLab, COM 100
Antibiotic resistance is a growing health crisis, caused by the misuse and overuse of antibiotics in both human medicine and agriculture. Exacerbating this issue is the stagnation in new antibiotic discovery since the 1980s. To address the urgent need for new antibiotics, I completed this study aimed at identifying new antibiotic-producing microbes from a soil sample collected in my backyard. Using a serial dilution method, microbes were isolated and screened against safe relatives of the ESKAPE pathogens to determine whether or not they exhibit antimicrobial properties, as indicated by zones of inhibition. My initial trial did not yield any promising candidates, prompting a second round of isolation and testing. This study highlights the importance of continued exploration for new antibiotics to combat resistance and expand treatment options for infectious diseases.
Comments
The faculty mentor for this project was Eulandria Biddle, Biology.