Antibiotic Activity in Soil Bacteria

The discovery of penicillin was one of the most revolutionary breakthroughs of modern medicine. With the advent of antibiotics, doctors had tools to fight previously incurable bacterial infections. Unfortunately, the more these revolutionary drugs were used, the more bacteria began to acquire resistance to them. Antibiotic resistant infections now pose an ever growing threat to public health. It is more important now than ever to discover novel antibiotics. Since the soil is rich with competing microbes, it is the perfect environment to search for undiscovered antibiotic producing strains of bacteria. For my project, I have cultivated bacteria from a sample of local soil, in hopes to isolate a new strain of antibiotic producing bacteria.