Question about probiotics on science fair project

[deleted-111820]

Hi! I just decided on my science fair project topic.
I want to perform experiments to see if probiotics slow or prevent the growth of pathogenic bacterias. If do, I want to test if the pathogenic bacterias have resistance against the probiotics like they have with antibiotics.
I wonder if the experiments would be too dangerous because it involves pathogenic bacterias and which bacteria should we use in the experiments if the experiments are feasible?

Thank you for reviewing my questions!

[deleted-111820]

Hi! I am planning to do a research project on probiotics for science fair.
I want to perform experiments to test if probiotics can effectively prevent or slow the growth of pathogenic bacterias, and if do, i want to do more experiments to test if the bacteria would develop resistance toward probiotics.
I also want to see if probiotics are also effective in preventing bacterial infections on other body parts other than gastrointestinal tract.
I wonder which kind of bacteria and probiotic should I use in the experiments? Please let me know you have any advice and suggestions on my ideas.

Thank you!

[donnahardy2]

Hi Gabwen,

Welcome to Science Buddies!

This is a very interesting and original project idea. If you want to investigate the effect of probiotic bacteria on pathogenic bacteria, then you need some way of measuring the effect of one bacterium on another; this is a bacteria communication project.

There are no Science Buddies projects available on this topic, so you will need to do some background research to figure out what your experiment will be. I recommend spending a few days reading as much about the topic and finding out what resources you have available so you will be able to design a really good experiment. Here are some examples of scientific papers on this topic. Read these to get an idea for a specific experiment that you could do:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19459435

http://www.ifrj.upm.edu.my/16%20(3)%202 ... 20Shah.pdf

http://www.trjfas.org/pdf/issue_12_01/0121.pdf

http://www.pathogencombat.com/Publicati ... ine_5.ashx

http://vri.cz/docs/vetmed/47-6-169.pdf

Do an internet search on your own, and refer to the references on three of the papers for additional resources. Focus on the introduction sections of the papers, which describe the rationale behind the project and the materials and methods sections to get an idea of what the experimental protocol will be. Please post your questions if there’s anything about the papers that you don’t understand.

Do you have access to a BSL-2 (biological safety level 2) laboratory? You will need to do experiments with pathogenic bacteria. If you don’t have a suitable laboratory available, then you will need to design your experiment to use all non-pathogens.

Here is information on microbiology techniques and troubleshooting from the Science Buddies website. If you do not have any experiment in culturing microorganisms, I recommend reading through this information:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ques.shtml

You will probably need to get approval from your local scientific review committee before starting this project. Here is information on this topic. Check with your teacher is you need more details:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ents.shtml

Let us know if you need more information for this challenging project!

Donna Hardy

[deleted-111820]

Thank you very much Donna! Thank helps a lot.