The Power of Soil
Location
CoLab, COM 203
Start Date
30-4-2026 10:45 AM
Document Type
Poster
Description
Using soil to discover antibiotics is important because soil is a very competitive environment for microorganisms. Many different microbes live in soil, but they have limited space and nutrients. Because of this competition, some microbes produce antibiotic compounds that stop other microbes from growing. Bacteria was isolated from a soil sample to look for organisms that could produce antibiotics. The soil sample was diluted and plated to separate different bacterial colonies. Colonies that showed signs of inhibition were then transferred to a master plate and did antibiotic screening on all candidates. After screening all the candidates, candidate #3, named “Bob,” showed the best ability to inhibit bacterial growth. Therefore, it was selected as the best candidate for further testing. These results show that soil bacteria may be a useful source for discovering new antibiotics.
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The Power of Soil
CoLab, COM 203
Using soil to discover antibiotics is important because soil is a very competitive environment for microorganisms. Many different microbes live in soil, but they have limited space and nutrients. Because of this competition, some microbes produce antibiotic compounds that stop other microbes from growing. Bacteria was isolated from a soil sample to look for organisms that could produce antibiotics. The soil sample was diluted and plated to separate different bacterial colonies. Colonies that showed signs of inhibition were then transferred to a master plate and did antibiotic screening on all candidates. After screening all the candidates, candidate #3, named “Bob,” showed the best ability to inhibit bacterial growth. Therefore, it was selected as the best candidate for further testing. These results show that soil bacteria may be a useful source for discovering new antibiotics.
Comments
The faculty mentor for this project was Kara Weigand.