From Soil to Hospital: Discovering New Antibiotics Through the Tiny Earth Program

Our goal through the Tiny Earth program is to find more antibiotics we can use within healthcare. Around the world, there is a slowly diminishing supply of antibiotics that are effective against bacteria worldwide. The problem of antibiotic supply slowly diminishing is because bacteria are changing rapidly, causing antibiotics we know now to not be as effective on bacteria. In my research, I collected soil to find inhibition and tested my candidates from our soil sample against safe ESKAPES. After testing my candidates against the safe ESKAPES the first time I was unable to find any inhibition from my candidates. I have started a new dilution to continue to find candidates that inhibit a safe ESKAPES. This research is impactful because it helps to widen the knowledge and availability of antibiotics that could be used in the healthcare setting. Overall we want to find antibiotic producing bacteria colonies from our soil sample that then inhibit the ESKAPE pathogens that are known to be resistant to many antibiotics.