Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello,

I want to conduct research on antibiotic resistance, but I'm not totally sure where to start.

I did have one idea: I was thinking I could research the effects of different foods on antibiotic resistance. I was planning on doing this by exposing bacteria to different foods (for example, almond milk), and then growing them on a petri dish with antibiotics and see if, or how quickly, the bacteria develop resistance.

Is this project too basic? (The goal is to eventually enter my project into a science fair of some sorts). Is there a way I could make this project better or more specific?

Does anybody know what areas of antibiotic resistance have not been as researched to date?

Any help is much appreciated, thank you!

p.s. I have access to university metabolic engineering and metabolic analysis labs.

Hello,

Antibiotic resistance is a very important topic to research! For bacteria to become antibiotic resistant, they have to be cultured in the presence of antibiotics. If the foods that you're exposing your bacteria to don't have antibiotics in them, they probably won't cause the bacteria to become antibiotic resistant.

One of the ways scientists are trying to combat antibiotic resistance is by finding other antimicrobial products that we can use as an alternative to antibiotics. If you'd like, you could choose a few foods that you hypothesize may have antimicrobial properties and expose bacteria to them to see if they inhibit bacterial growth. You can test the antimicrobial effects of different products using the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method, which is explained in this Science Buddies Project guide:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... resistance

I think a project like this would be sufficiently complex for you to enter it into a science fair. Let us know your thoughts and don't hesitate to ask any other questions that you have!

Thank you so much for your response! Your response has really helped me a lot, I think I'll dive deeper into how foods containing prebiotics and probiotics may have an effect on antibiotic resistance.