Microbiology Project 2008
ECoS Faculty: Carl Sillman and Jackie Bortiatynski
ECoS Undergraduate Mentor: Luke McDermott
Isolation of An Antibiotic-Producing Organism and
Determination of the Optimal Conditions for Antibiotic Production
Today, medical science faces the challenge of having to treat patients
with serious infections that are caused by pathogenic bacteria, which
have become resistant to many of the antibiotics that have been used
effectively in the past. Many of these pathogenic bacteria have become
resistant to more than one drug. The most notable example of this is
the microorganism known as "MRSA," which stands for
Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus. As more of the drugs in
our antibiotic arsenal become useless, fewer drugs are available
to treat these infections. This problem has created an urgent demand
for new antibiotics to treat these resistant microbes. In this project,
students will isolate members of the genus Streptomyces from garden
soil using special selective media. These isolates will be screened for
an ability to produce antibiotics with a bioassay with sensitive
indicator organisms. Promising isolates that are identified as being
antibiotic producers will be grown in various growth media to determine
the optimal conditions for antibiotic production.