Antibiotic Resistance

[deleted-146689]

Hi my name is Martin and i'm doing a project on antibiotic resistance and starting to work on my project but i'm trying to make it my own project but i don't know how to change it up i was trying to do the science buddy's project of antibiotic resistant but i want to change it up to make it my own. do you guys have any ideas of how i can make my antibiotic resistant project my own the link is down below
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure

[deleted-143835]

Hi Martin,

Good start! One idea could be to test various kinds of disinfectants. I've seen projects that test various kinds of mouthwashes, natural disinfectants, commercially available ones, etc - it is always interesting to see the different effects of similar products, so you could do somewhat of a product study if you're interested. Of course, there are also many other ways to make a twist, such as testing more bacteria, but these alternatives are probably more difficult in terms of obtaining materials and conducting research.

Please post back with any more questions!

[deleted-132180]

Hi Martin,

Antibiotic resistance is a great topic to work on! I also love that you want to make this project your own by coming up with more unique ideas. Why don't you reply back with things that you're interested in and what got you to wanting to work on antibiotic resistance, and from those, we can brainstorm some questions that you can test!

Also, one good thing to know is the resources that are going to be available to you. Are you going to be doing this in your own home? In a high school lab? Or in a local university lab? Are you going to be working closely with an experienced mentor? The resources available to you will make a huge difference in terms of what questions you can go about testing. If you are interested in testing antibiotic resistance between different types of bacteria, then a high school lab would be your best bet if you are working with non-pathogenic bacteria (i.e. E. coli, Bacillus subtilis, etc.), but if you want to work with actual pathogens, then you would have to contact a local university lab to see if they are willing to help you with your projects.

Post back with more questions if you have any--we'd be happy to brainstorm with you to come up with some unique ideas!

Best,
Connie

[deleted-146689]

Hi Martin,

Antibiotic resistance is a great topic to work on! I also love that you want to make this project your own by coming up with more unique ideas. Why don't you reply back with things that you're interested in and what got you to wanting to work on antibiotic resistance, and from those, we can brainstorm some questions that you can test!

Also, one good thing to know is the resources that are going to be available to you. Are you going to be doing this in your own home? In a high school lab? Or in a local university lab? Are you going to be working closely with an experienced mentor? The resources available to you will make a huge difference in terms of what questions you can go about testing. If you are interested in testing antibiotic resistance between different types of bacteria, then a high school lab would be your best bet if you are working with non-pathogenic bacteria (i.e. E. coli, Bacillus subtilis, etc.), but if you want to work with actual pathogens, then you would have to contact a local university lab to see if they are willing to help you with your projects.

Post back with more questions if you have any--we'd be happy to brainstorm with you to come up with some unique ideas!

Best,
Connie

thanks im was thnking of making Agar and poring it on sterile plates and let it cool down for 24 hours and then i was going to spread E coli on atleast 10 plates. I was thinking of using diferent food products to see which is resistant i was think im using Herbs, Fermented foods, Cabage, Honey, and Onions and Garlic and my resources is at a high school lab.

[deleted-143835]

Hi Martin,

Excellent, this sounds like just the way to do it! I assume sterile plates are sterile Petri dishes? just to make sure. (:

Just out of curiosity, are you using a powdered form of the foods?
Good luck! Let us know how it goes!

[deleted-132180]

Hi Martin,

That sounds like an excellent start! Along a similar point that scibuddyAK was raising, what form of the food are you going to use to test their antimicrobial activity? For example, like scibuddyAK was saying, there are powdered forms of the food you were talking about, like onions and garlic. However, for something solid like cabbage, how are you planning to process this food? One idea is you can put it in a blender and homogenize it. However, one important thing to remember is to record the concentration of the food at which you tested. The extent of antimicrobial activity of a certain compound can depend highly on its concentration. For example, if you tested a compound at a low concentration and see that it doesn't seem to inhibit E. coli, it doesn't necessarily mean that it won't inhibit E. coli at a higher concentration. However, if you want to keep everything consistent, you can also just choose one particular concentration and dilute all your foods to that concentration, and see which food has the strongest antimicrobial activity at that particular concentration. It really depends on where you want to go.

Feel free to post back with more questions.

Connie

[deleted-146689]

Hi Martin,

That sounds like an excellent start! Along a similar point that scibuddyAK was raising, what form of the food are you going to use to test their antimicrobial activity? For example, like scibuddyAK was saying, there are powdered forms of the food you were talking about, like onions and garlic. However, for something solid like cabbage, how are you planning to process this food? One idea is you can put it in a blender and homogenize it. However, one important thing to remember is to record the concentration of the food at which you tested. The extent of antimicrobial activity of a certain compound can depend highly on its concentration. For example, if you tested a compound at a low concentration and see that it doesn't seem to inhibit E. coli, it doesn't necessarily mean that it won't inhibit E. coli at a higher concentration. However, if you want to keep everything consistent, you can also just choose one particular concentration and dilute all your foods to that concentration, and see which food has the strongest antimicrobial activity at that particular concentration. It really depends on where you want to go.

Feel free to post back with more questions.

Connie

Connie i have a quick question if i use powdered food how can i spread it in the ecoli plates and also with solids if i blend them how will i spread it in the plates i tried it but i feel like im doing it wrong.

[deleted-132180]

Hi Martin,

It depends on what kind of antimicrobial assay you are doing. When you first posted, you sent us this link: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure. Are you doing the disk diffusion assay for this?

Regardless, for the powdered foods, what you can do is dissolve it with water. For solid foods, you can homogenize it with a blender and then dilute it down with water to your desired concentration. Remember that I mentioned before that noting the concentration that you use is very important because certain antimicrobial compounds can only kill bacteria at a certain concentration but not at concentrations lower.

Let me know what your question, hypothesis, and experimental procedures are and I can give you some more advice if necessary!

Best,
Connie