Exploring Antibiotic Potential in a Bacteria Named “Betty”

Antibiotic resistance is a growing health crisis across the globe, making the discovery of new antibiotics more urgent than ever. Due to the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, bacteria have evolved to withstand many current treatment options, making it harder to treat infections. Research into new antibiotics is crucial to developing new treatment options and combating drug-resistant infections. The bacteria that I started with, Betty, was isolated from a soil sample and is a 98.19% match to two known Pseudomonas strains: P. wadenswilereisensis and P. donghuensis. For this project, we are isolating and testing potential antibiotics produced by novel bacteria. To separate the components of the bacterial extracts, we used chromatography techniques such as Thin-Layer Chromatography (TLC), Column Chromatography, and high -performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). At each stage, we assessed the antibacterial activity of the separated compounds by testing them against bacterial strains in broth and using a plate reader to measure their effectiveness. So far, we have successfully extracted and separated chemical compounds from the bacteria using chromatography techniques. Chemical extracts taken from “Betty” demonstrated 100% inhibition in both P. putida and S. epi when grown in broth with the extract. The results will be presented along with a discussion of how each of the chromatography methods contributed to separating the components of the bacterial extracts.