Session: Undergraduate Research Posters: Chemistry Education:

Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is becoming a significant concern, originating in part from the increased amount of antibiotics prescribed by doctors and patients failing to complete their course of treatment. Resistant bacteria are quickly adapting to new forms of antibiotics and are becoming more deadly. Based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2019 estimate, in the United States approximately 2.8 million antibiotic resistant infections occur each year and about 90,000 deaths can be attributed to bacterial infections. Therefore, it is critical that high school and undergraduate students interested in going into the medical field are introduced to the idea of antibiotic resistance. Several different methods of increasing resistance to kanamycin and ampicillin in E. coli were created and tested to provide a laboratory experience to students at an introductory chemistry level. Multiple procedures were created using either solid or liquid medium, however, the most practical and successful procedure involved growing resistance in liquid medium in a single flask, which was left to grow over the course of a week.

Daniel Marous

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