Unearthing Hidden Antimicrobial Potential

For almost 96 years to date, we as mankind have had the pleasant knowledge of antibiotic ability and efficacy in treating infectious disease. While the revelation of antibiotics has been an exponential breakthrough in medical treatment there have been no nuanced discoveries since the 70’s well over half a century. That knowledge alone is discouraging, but thanks to programs such as CURE we as a student body are delighted to be looking for a future for antimicrobial advantage in healthcare. In the project we simply took a random sample of dirt in hopes of finding microbial candidates to be cultured and tested. In order to examine the candidates for optimal antibiotic activity specific techniques such as gram stain, culturing, PCR, etc. were used. In combination with Safe Relatives of ESKAPE pathogens we were able to take promising candidates and test them directly to see if any resistance was feasible. This overall approach allowed for multiple micro research studies to be conducted in hopes of taking a macro jump in the future for antibiotic treatment for the greater good.