Hi! I really enjoyed your presentation! My question for you is how were you able to acquire Melittin? Did your group have to isolate and purify the compound or were you just able access it from your lab?
We had ordered the Melittin from Enzo Biochem which is a biotechnology company. We had ordered a purified sample and did not purify the Melittin ourselves.
I would suggest using mice as they are genetically similar to humans. Also since Salmonella Typhimurium does have an effect against mice and can be used again as a model bacteria.
Salmonella Typhi causes Typhoid fever in humans, making it extremely dangerous to work with. However Salmonella Typhimurium only causes gastroenteritis in humans rather than typhoid fever and is still structurally similar to Typhi.
Using the controls was to have a comparison for Melittin. We used ampicillin as a positive control, which is a known anti-biotic that is effective and DMSO as a negative control as it has no effect against Salmonella Typhimurium. Using these controls, once we got the results back about Melittin we compared and found that it was similar to ampicillin and therefore concluded that Melittin has anti-biotic properties.
Thank you! A statistical hit in this experiment was anything outside 2 times the standard deviation plus the mean for the upper bound and minus for the lower bound. Anything above the upper bound means that it increased the growth of Salmonella and therefore is a growth promoter. Anything below the lower bound would be considered an anti-biotic as it lowered the growth of Salmonella.
It seems as though your dose response curve wasn’t a uniform/smooth curve. What could account for the absorbency going up and down through the dose response trails as compared to your uniformly decreasing dosage?
This may have been because of the drug not being equally distributed in the well and could have then allowed some Salmonella to grow without being effected by Melittin.
If Melittin was effective against other gram negative bacteria means that this increases the variety of bacteria it can treat. We would then test the compound on gram positive bacteria to see it can be effective against gram positive bacteria.
We had researched a couple of research studies on the properties of Melittin. They had results that proved it had anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties.
curesymposium.org 
Hi! I really enjoyed your presentation! My question for you is how were you able to acquire Melittin? Did your group have to isolate and purify the compound or were you just able access it from your lab?
LikeLike
We had ordered the Melittin from Enzo Biochem which is a biotechnology company. We had ordered a purified sample and did not purify the Melittin ourselves.
LikeLike
What organisms would you suggest using in future in vivo experimentation and why?
LikeLike
I would suggest mice due to the their genetic similarity with humans. It is also easier to work with mice compared to other primates.
LikeLike
I would suggest using mice as they are genetically similar to humans. Also since Salmonella Typhimurium does have an effect against mice and can be used again as a model bacteria.
LikeLike
You said that you used Salmonella Typhimurium because it is safer that Typhi, What makes Typhimurium safer than Typhi?
LikeLike
Salmonella Typhi causes Typhoid fever in humans, making it extremely dangerous to work with. However Salmonella Typhimurium only causes gastroenteritis in humans rather than typhoid fever and is still structurally similar to Typhi.
LikeLike
Great Presentation! What was the significance of using ampicillin and DMSO as controls? how does it relate to the results of your research?
LikeLike
Using the controls was to have a comparison for Melittin. We used ampicillin as a positive control, which is a known anti-biotic that is effective and DMSO as a negative control as it has no effect against Salmonella Typhimurium. Using these controls, once we got the results back about Melittin we compared and found that it was similar to ampicillin and therefore concluded that Melittin has anti-biotic properties.
LikeLike
How would this drug be administered? Is it meant to treat the infection in humans or be applied to food products?
LikeLike
The research we conducted only by pipetting Melittin into a well of Salmonella. We aim to make it a drug that humans would ingest as a treatment.
LikeLike
Beautiful poster! What was considered a “statistical hit” in the context of this research? What does that mean in terms of bacteria growth?
LikeLike
Thank you! A statistical hit in this experiment was anything outside 2 times the standard deviation plus the mean for the upper bound and minus for the lower bound. Anything above the upper bound means that it increased the growth of Salmonella and therefore is a growth promoter. Anything below the lower bound would be considered an anti-biotic as it lowered the growth of Salmonella.
LikeLike
It seems as though your dose response curve wasn’t a uniform/smooth curve. What could account for the absorbency going up and down through the dose response trails as compared to your uniformly decreasing dosage?
LikeLike
This may have been because of the drug not being equally distributed in the well and could have then allowed some Salmonella to grow without being effected by Melittin.
LikeLike
If it turned out that Melittin was responsive to other gram negative bacteria what would this tell you? What would your next steps be?
LikeLike
If Melittin was effective against other gram negative bacteria means that this increases the variety of bacteria it can treat. We would then test the compound on gram positive bacteria to see it can be effective against gram positive bacteria.
LikeLike
Great job and super interesting project! For selecting your compound, what evidence did you find that this compound is antibacterial?
LikeLike
We had researched a couple of research studies on the properties of Melittin. They had results that proved it had anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties.
LikeLike