For one week in August the Weibel lab has been joined by two young scientists. Led by Katie Brenner, winner of 2014 Women in Science Fellowship, Ms. Autumn Greco from New York, NY and Ms. Jamese Mangum from Washington DC have joined the group for a week of intensive research.
Throughout the week the students have run a set of experiments that all tie together.
- Collected environmental samples of microbes and microbial biofilms from the lake and Allen gardens, and cultured the bacteria in the samples to learn about natural antibiotic resistance.
- Grew bacteria in the lab that are engineered to have antibiotic resistance, and learned about why antibiotic resistance is helpful in science, and studied how these engineered bacteria form biofilms.
- Learned about bacteriophages and studied their presence in lake water and their ability to infect the bacteria that we cultured from the lake water.
- Studied about how microfluidic devices can be used to study and identify bacterial species in a mixed sample like lake water.
- Investigated bacteria in our own bodies by studying growth of bacteria cultured from our own saliva.
- Researched synthetic chemistry related to antibiotic discovery.
- Explored how we can study preterm newborns to look for signs of bacterial infections.
Photo By: Robin Davies