What do you think of my experiment?

[hitmankratos]

Hi,

 

I've found a science fair project and already have someone to help me (for the material and all) at the University and I just wanted to ask you guys what you think of the experiment: Trying Bacteriophages on antibiotic resistant bacteria to see if phages could be used as an alternative to antibiotics.

 

I'd have two parts in my experiment: "trigger" the antibiotic resistance of that bacteria (don't know which one yet), then I'll try the phages on them (on the resistant ones). I'll also have an explanation part where I just talk about what happens and all...

 

So what do you think?

[big314mp]

You could do ampicillin resistance, as that is commonly used in labs, and is well studied. You could probably even order ampicillan resistant strains from supply companies.

[hitmankratos]

I don't know what antibiotic to use yet...It's all gonna depend on the bacteria...(If that is what you're suggesting...) Sorry, I don't know much about that stuff yet..I'm currently reading about bacteria and antibiotics and all. I'm in Grade 10 btw.

 

I just want to know if this would make an interesting project for a science fair...

[big314mp]

I suggested ampicillin since it is well studied in the lab, for both resistance and non-resistance. You can buy both resistant and non-resistant versions of the same bacterium. You can also induce resistance with plasmids (rings of DNA) that can also be bought.

 

As for feasibility, I really can't comment on that

 

I can tell you that it would make a DAMN interesting science fair project if you could pull it off.

[hitmankratos]

Oh yeah I think I can pull it off...I have 2 reaserchers at an infectious who kindly accepted to help me. One is specialist in the bacterial resistance and can help me with that and the second one is a phage specialist who can give me and help me with the phages...

So I think I'm good.

 

Any other comments?

Edited October 18, 2008 by hitmankratos

[big314mp]

It sounds very...very...what's the word...Awesome? Yeah, that's it.

 

I've always wanted to do something like this, but my bio teacher in high school didn't have the expertise to guide me too pull it off. But you seem to be in very good hands.

 

Best of luck!

 

Oh, and post back how it goes. I'm quite curious myself.

[hitmankratos]

Yeah sure no problem.

I've met my two reaserchers and we're gonna start the experimentations soon...I'm probably going to do that on E. Coli and try many phages on them like T4 and lambda...

I'll tell you how it goes when the experiment is all done.

[hitmankratos]

For those of you who want to know how this turned out :

 

I tried many things on E.Coli with several phages. I even tried to mix up phages to see if they have better effects on the bacteria.

Anyway, it went really well. I got 6th place in the regional sciecne fair, but in the provincials (I live in Quebec, Canada, and this is how it works), I got like 4 prizes (bronze medal in my category) and I'm going to the Canada Wide Science fair

Yay !