Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

would making my own antibiotic be more effective than an store bought antibiotic product? what should I know about this?

Hello!

Store bought antibiotics would be the best option. Those have been thoroughly tested to ensure that they kill bacteria before they are sold in stores. Hope this helps!

-Surya

Hi,

I think you might want to try at least some of your own choices for things to test as antibiotics.

If you buy an antibacterial soap or mouthwash in the store you already know that it kills bacteria so what's the point of testing it? It's good to use one of these as a positive control in your experiment, but I think it is much more fun to try a bunch of things that you think might have antibacterial properties like garlic, turmeric, chocolate, green tea, jalapeno peppers--anything you can think of.

Once you have the E coli bacterial culture and the Petri dishes with agar then you can use the Kirby-Bauer method to test whatever you want for antibacterial properties (https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure).

Who knows--you might discover something that kills bacteria that nobody knew about simply because they never tried it. Be creative and adventurous--it's a lot more fun.

Good luck!

Sybee