You talked about the specific antimicrobial properties that you were looking at with the chemical compound you tested in your experiment: however, I am slightly lost on the generic importance of chemical compounds having antimicrobial properties. Can you elaborate a bit more on that?
The purpose of the lab was to test a chemical compound that could potentially work as an antibiotic. Antibiotics are a specific type of antimicrobial. So we want to test a compound that has antimicrobial properties, meaning it could possibly kill or stop the growth of bacteria. If the chemical compound does not have antimicrobial properties, it won’t be able to kill or stop the growth of bacteria, and thus couldn’t work as an antibiotic.
Hi Zahra 🙂 We were thinking of using polyphenols because there was research that suggested they have antimicrobial properties. However, polyphenols are a big class of compound and we needed to narrow it down. Pam gave us the idea of phloroglucinol along with research that said it worked as an antibiotic.
Hi Zahra 🙂 We originally wanted to test polyphenols because they are present in making fruit brown and there was research that suggested that they have antimicrobial properties. However, polyphenols are such a large class of compounds. so we needed to narrow it down. Pam gave us the idea of phloroglucinol, along with some research that suggested it had antimicrobial properties.
We didn’t actually get brown algae, sadly. Pam ordered a powder form of of Phloroglucinol (that had already been obtained from the brown algae) and we made a solution out of it that we used in the rest of our experiments.
We know that Ampicillin kills bacteria, so we needed to compare Phloroglucinol to it in order to see if it was behaving similarly to something that is known to work. In one row of wells, we added bacteria and ampicillin. In another row of wells, we added bacteria and phloroglucinol
You talked about the specific antimicrobial properties that you were looking at with the chemical compound you tested in your experiment: however, I am slightly lost on the generic importance of chemical compounds having antimicrobial properties. Can you elaborate a bit more on that?
The purpose of the lab was to test a chemical compound that could potentially work as an antibiotic. Antibiotics are a specific type of antimicrobial. So we want to test a compound that has antimicrobial properties, meaning it could possibly kill or stop the growth of bacteria. If the chemical compound does not have antimicrobial properties, it won’t be able to kill or stop the growth of bacteria, and thus couldn’t work as an antibiotic.
Hi Arya! Great presentation! How did you come across your compound when you were thinking about what to test?
Hi Zahra 🙂 We were thinking of using polyphenols because there was research that suggested they have antimicrobial properties. However, polyphenols are a big class of compound and we needed to narrow it down. Pam gave us the idea of phloroglucinol along with research that said it worked as an antibiotic.
Hi Zahra 🙂 We originally wanted to test polyphenols because they are present in making fruit brown and there was research that suggested that they have antimicrobial properties. However, polyphenols are such a large class of compounds. so we needed to narrow it down. Pam gave us the idea of phloroglucinol, along with some research that suggested it had antimicrobial properties.
Where did you get the brown algae that contained the Phloroglucinol you used in these experiments?
We didn’t actually get brown algae, sadly. Pam ordered a powder form of of Phloroglucinol (that had already been obtained from the brown algae) and we made a solution out of it that we used in the rest of our experiments.
What is the purpose of adding the positive control, Ampicillin?
We know that Ampicillin kills bacteria, so we needed to compare Phloroglucinol to it in order to see if it was behaving similarly to something that is known to work. In one row of wells, we added bacteria and ampicillin. In another row of wells, we added bacteria and phloroglucinol