Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi,
I am planning to do a project in school which involves comparing Turmeric and Ampicillin tablets to see which one results in less resistance after a few generations (minimum 5). I have a few questions regarding the procedures:-

1) How do I achieve equal concentrations of both? Do I dilute it? If so, with what volume of water?
2)I also want to vary the concentrations to find out which concentration of each tablet results in less resistance. Is there any way I can incorporate this?
3) Is there any literature values or sample experiments of this sort that I can refer to?
4) How can I formulate a research question?

Thank you so much in advance for your help and support.

Hi there!

I'll try to answer each of your questions:

1- Yes you can get the same concentrations of each by diluting. Are they both in powder form? Ampicillin can be diluted in water for sure. I have never worked with Turmeric but you can also try water. If you weigh out both your samples to 1mg and dilute in 1mL of water, then your solution will be 1mg/mL and you can make further dilutions of that for your testing.

2- As I mentioned in #1 if you make a 1mg/mL stock, further dilute those to different concentrations for testing.

3- Are you looking for sample experiments on zone of inhibition testing? I'm assuming yes, but if I'm wrong please repost. Zone of Inhibition is also referred to as Kirby Bauer. ScienceBuddies has a several project ideas, here is the link for you to check out: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... +Bauer&p=1

4- Can you explain a little more about your project? What bacteria are you looking to test? What is your goal of comparing the turmeric and ampicillin? Having a little more background info will help working on a research question.

Also I suggest (if you haven't already) check out microbiology safety section on ScienceBuddies https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ques.shtml

I hope this helps, please let us know if you have other questions.
Nikki

My project is basically about using Ampicillin tablets and turmeric tablets to understand which one will result in the development of less resistance in bacteria (E.coli). For example,first I will be taking a concentration of 1mg/ml of both turmeric and ampicillin tablets. If the zone of inhibition length(diameter) for the bacteria after the 5th generation with ampicillin decreases from 25mm (initial at generation 1) to 10mm and if the the length only decreased from 20mm (initial at generation 1) to 17mm with turmeric, then turmeric results in the development of less resistance (or vice versa). I will repeat this at different concentrations to find out if there is an effect of concentration on the resistance developed for both tablets. Is this a valid experiment? If so, can you please help me create a research question? Please tell me if you have any suggestions to improve it. Thanks a lot!

Hi,
I am planning to do a project in school which involves comparing Turmeric and Ampicillin tablets to see which one results in the development of lesser resistance in a bacteria (E.coli) after a few generations (minimum 5). For example, first I will be taking a certain concentration of both turmeric and ampicillin tablets. If the zone of inhibition length(diameter) for the bacteria after the 5th generation with ampicillin decreases from 25mm (initial at generation 1) to 10mm and if the length (diameter) only decreased from 20mm (initial at generation 1) to 17mm with turmeric, then turmeric results in the development of less resistance. I will repeat this at different concentrations to find out if there is an effect of concentration on the resistance developed for both tablets. Is this a valid experiment? If so, please help me answer the following questions:-

1) If I am diluting with 1mg/ml, but does this refer to milligram/ml or microgram/ml?
2) Say I want to test out the effect of 10mg, 20mg, 30mg and 40mg of antibiotic, what ml of water should I mix them with so that the concentration varies?
3) What is the optimum mass (10mg .etc.) with which I should start the antibiotic so I get a good zone of inhibition length (above 25mm)?
4) What should be my threshold length (the length at which I can say that the bacteria have become resistant)? Should it be 13mm?
5) Turmeric might begin with a lesser zone of inhibition diameter compared to Ampicillin. So does the threshold length have to be different for turmeric or should it be the same as Ampicillin to ensure a fair comparison?
6) Are there any literature values or sample experiments of this sort that I can refer to?
7) How can I formulate a research question?

Please suggest any improvements if I am making any errors. Thank you so much for your help and support!

Hello. Please keep all questions to a single thread so that the experts can best help you based on what has already been discussed.

Good luck, and thanks for using Science Buddies!

dcnick96 wrote:Hello. Please keep all questions to a single thread so that the experts can best help you based on what has already been discussed.

Good luck, and thanks for using Science Buddies!

Please help me delete this thread so that I can repost. Thanks!

No need! It will help the experts (and other students) to read what has already been discussed. Just post any follow up questions to the bottom of this thread, and the topic will appear at the top of the forum queue.

Good luck!

Hi,
I am planning to do an experiment that compares the bacterial (E.coli) resistance to turmeric and ampicillin. I will basically be taking 5 generations of each (turmeric and ampicillin) at different concentrations. I will then see if there is a decrease in the zone of inhibition length (diameter). For example, say the zone of inhibition length for ampicillin at 3mg/ml is 24mm and for turmeric at 3mg/ml is 22mm. If the length of ampicillin by the 5th generation is 10mm (14mm decrease) and that of turmeric is 18mm (4mm decrease), it shows that bacteria have become resistant to ampicillin but not so much to turmeric. I will then repeat the experiments with different concentrations and then compare the effects of both the substances.

Is this a valid experiment? If so, please help me with the following:-
1) My teacher is asking me to do a turbidity or spectrophotometric test. She believes that the zone of inhibition test is preliminary and that I have to bolster it with other tests so that my project becomes more complex. Please explain to me on how to incorporate these tests (or anything similar) to my experiment. It would be great if you could link me to some good explanations on these tests as well.
2) I am not really clear on how to formulate a research question. I have a good idea of my topic but I find creating a question that focuses on all aspects of the experiment to be difficult.

If possible, please suggest any improvements that I can make. Thank you so much for your help and support!

Hi,

Your experiment sounds valid. Just an FYI, the concentrations you mention (3mg/mL) seem very high. I'm a microbiologist and we work with micrograms (ug). I'm just worried if you start too high, you will get complete killing of all your bacteria and have no zones to measure.

1 - Do you have access to a turbidity meter or spectrophotomer at your school or science lab? I believe what your teacher is talking about is what I do daily called Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC). The experiment is run in broth rather than agar and bacterial growth is measured by turbidity. Here is a website to help explain it better https://courses.cit.cornell.edu/biomi29 ... Method.htm
2 - As far as coming up with a good research question, it should be what you are trying to answer with the experiments you are carrying out. I found this online which might be able to help guide you. http://twp.duke.edu/uploads/media_items ... iginal.pdf

Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have other questions.
Nikki

Thank you for the quick reply. The link you mentioned does not use a spectrometer, but my school has one and my teacher is insisting I use it to make my experiment more complex. How can I incorporate this into my experiment? Also, do I have to use the beer-lambert law in my project if I am using a spectrometer?