Finding Antimicrobials in Soil

The goal of this research project is to find a microbe in soil that has antimicrobial properties against the safe relatives of pathogens. I started by taking a serial dilution of soil in my front yard, culturing that, and looking at what grew from it. From there I chose 12 candidates that showed inhibition and further grew them on a masterplate. The 12 promising bacterial candidates were screened against 6 ESKAPE pathogen safe relatives. The single bacteria which had the most inhibition was then used in a quadrant streak to produce isolated, pure colonies. Metabolic testing, PCR, and gel electrophoresis were used to determine the identity of the candidate.