Soil to Solution: Investigating Soil-Derived Bacteria for Antibiotic Resistance Breakthroughs

Antibiotic resistance is a serious issue that is causing a public health crisis. Engaging in scientific research to discover new antibiotics from soil bacteria is helping to tackle this problem. The obstacle is that the supply of antibiotics is diminishing and bacteria are finding a way to make current antibiotics ineffective. If the same antibiotics are being used to treat a bacterial infection, the bacteria can start to resist the antibiotic and it won’t help to treat the infection anymore. To address this concern, I have isolated bacteria from soil and tested the microorganisms found in the soil against safe ESKAPEs. Four candidates from my soil sample were able to inhibit the safe ESKAPE, Escherichia coli. This safe ESKAPE is closely related to an ESKAPE pathogen that is common in hospitals. The ultimate goal is to see if my candidate can produce an antibiotic that can treat those ESKAPE pathogens. This research could be important for discovering antibiotics that can treat ESKAPE pathogens.