The Search for a New Antibiotic

The Search for a New Antibiotic. I am conducting this research in hopes of discovering a microbe that can be made into a new antibiotic. The need for new antibiotics is growing rapidly as antibiotic resistance becomes a rising problem. In an attempt to find a new antibiotic, I used a peaty soil sample obtained from my front yard underneath a tree. I used this soil to search for and grow microbes that show potential to inhibit other microbes. In my research, I screened many potential soil microbe candidates against safe ESKAPE relatives and identified if any showed an area of inhibition against these safe relatives. Once I had obtained a microbe candidate that visibly inhibited the growth of the safe relatives I used genetic and metabolic information to further understand the type of microbe I was working with and its potential impact on pathogens. This research has provided new candidates that can hopefully be used successfully in the future to further develop a new antibiotic that can save many lives.