The Southern California chapter of the American Society of Microbiology (SCASM) holds every year in their Fall conference a Student Collegiate Poster competition. We are ecstatic that our own undergraduate researcher Andrea Price (IG @andreaevolves, Twitter @andreaevolves) won this prestigious and competitive award. In her poster, Andrea presented a panel of antibiotic producing bacteria she and others isolated from the ocean plastic project. The workflow followed that of Tiny EarthTM , with some adaptation for use with marine microbes. The producers were effective against both Gram positive and negative bacteria. PCR sequencing revealed the most bacteria belonged to the genera Vibrio and Phaeobacter. While some Phaeobacter species have been shown to produce antibiotics, the same cannot be said about Vibrios. Being at SCASM provided additional insight about the issues of antibiotic resistance, and we got a good tip about getting antibiotic resistant strains from the CDC for testing.
Congratulations Andrea! She will be presenting her research at the national ASM meeting next June in Washington DC. Lots to test until then!
