Authors

Astrid Schick

Publication Date

4-12-2019

Faculty Advisor

Dr. Angela Hoffman

College/School

The College of Arts and Sciences

Abstract

As antibiotic resistance becomes an increasingly prominent issue in today’s medical reality, the discovery of new bioactive compounds is quintessential to the vitality of tomorrow’s generations. Fortunately the natural world has an almost limitless combination of compounds that organisms can produce and modify to survive that have yet to be researched. This untapped, continuously evolving database, has the potential to help abate the mounting resistance. This study uses microbes as a product source with the goal of extracting and identifying antibiotic and anticancer compounds. These microbes were derived from soil samples collected at the archeological dig site in Pollentia, on the island of Mallorca, Spain. Over a hundred different microbes were isolated initially by their morphology and antibiotic properties; three are focused on for the purposes of this study. Extracts were tested against both gram positive Strep epidermidis ATCC 1228, Staph aureus ATCC 25923, gram negative Escherichia coli DHIOB Life Technologies and Pythium Ultimum provided by Gary Strobel from Montana State University using the Agar disk diffusion and broth dilution methods (Balouiri 2016, Bauer 1966). Each bacteria affected a different combination of tests and further research needs to be done to determine the molecules responsible for these results and identify of the microbial species present.

Subjects

Microorganisms; Antibacterial agents; Antineoplastic agents; Excavations (Archaeology)

Publication Information

CH 493 Senior Honors Project

Copyright for this work is retained by the author.

Document Type

Student Project

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