Honestly, no! The first idea that we had was cuttlefish ink & that’s what we went with!
When the project was first introduced to us, our professor provided us with a long list of possible compounds to consider testing (cuttlefish ink was on the list). Before we had the chance to even consider another compound, we settled on cuttlefish ink because we all happened to be animal lovers! Of course, before we made our final decision and began research, we made sure that cuttlefish ink at least showed promising characteristics, and it did (i.e. the decrease in bacterial growth & anti-tumor effects, explained in the video) so we stuck with the compound and began experimentation.
Melanin is one of the main compounds found within squid ink, and research has found that it contains bioactive compounds that can be used as antibacterial agents. An example of the antibacterial activity of melanin in the content of squid ink has already been reported against biofilm bacteria. Melanin from squid ink contains active substances that are beneficial for human health.
Not much research has been conducted regarding the other compounds found in cuttlefish ink, so I am not entirely sure what other extracts might be inhibiting/promoting cell growth. However, I do know that when separating different compounds found in the ink, the antimicrobial compounds must be separated from compounds that provide nutrients, as to make sure that the bacteria can’t have access to nutrients that might assist in its growth.
We initially hypothesized not just that the growth would be unaffected but actually inhibited by the cuttlefish ink. Clearly, neither of those things happened, because like you said, the dose-response curved showed us that the cuttlefish ink was promoting bacterial growth, which was a result that directly contradicted our hypothesis.
That being said, we are honestly not entirely sure why bacterial growth was promoted rather than unaffected or inhibited by the cuttlefish ink. The first few plates that we ran were inaccurate due to an improper concentration of ethanol, so we think it is possible that those messed-up plates skewed the range of negative control data for statistical hits.
We also think it is possible that cuttlefish ink could work as a more subtle antibiotic, and the results could have been different had we experimented with a smaller amount of bacteria. It is also possible that individual compounds identified within cuttlefish ink contain nutrients that might mask the antimicrobial effects of other compounds in the extract.
I think that further testing would give us a much better idea of what exactly went wrong in this experiment, but for now, the lack of sufficient data is prohibiting me from providing a definite answer to your question.
Systematic studies have shown that gram-positive organisms are the leading cause of invasive bacterial disease in patients with cancer. A broad range of gram-positive bacteria can cause serious infections in the cancer patient, including tumors.
The peptidoglycans within cuttlefish ink have been proven to show anti-tumor effects with nanoparticles of the ink giving promising results in inhibiting the growth of tumor cells in mice through affecting cell division; a property often observed in antimicrobial cell division.
This research proves that cuttlefish ink has already shown promising results in other gram-negative bacterial infections.
curesymposium.org 
Did you have any ideas other than cuttlefish ink that you decided not to experiment with?
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Honestly, no! The first idea that we had was cuttlefish ink & that’s what we went with!
When the project was first introduced to us, our professor provided us with a long list of possible compounds to consider testing (cuttlefish ink was on the list). Before we had the chance to even consider another compound, we settled on cuttlefish ink because we all happened to be animal lovers! Of course, before we made our final decision and began research, we made sure that cuttlefish ink at least showed promising characteristics, and it did (i.e. the decrease in bacterial growth & anti-tumor effects, explained in the video) so we stuck with the compound and began experimentation.
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Why do you think bacterial growth be promoted rather than unaffected by the cuttlefish ink, as seen when analyzing the dose response curve?
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Why do you think bacterial growth would be promoted rather than unaffected by the cuttlefish ink, as seen when analyzing the dose response curve?
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What extracts from the ink do you think would be able to best deal with bacteria, as opposed to the extracts that cause them to grow?
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Melanin is one of the main compounds found within squid ink, and research has found that it contains bioactive compounds that can be used as antibacterial agents. An example of the antibacterial activity of melanin in the content of squid ink has already been reported against biofilm bacteria. Melanin from squid ink contains active substances that are beneficial for human health.
Not much research has been conducted regarding the other compounds found in cuttlefish ink, so I am not entirely sure what other extracts might be inhibiting/promoting cell growth. However, I do know that when separating different compounds found in the ink, the antimicrobial compounds must be separated from compounds that provide nutrients, as to make sure that the bacteria can’t have access to nutrients that might assist in its growth.
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We initially hypothesized not just that the growth would be unaffected but actually inhibited by the cuttlefish ink. Clearly, neither of those things happened, because like you said, the dose-response curved showed us that the cuttlefish ink was promoting bacterial growth, which was a result that directly contradicted our hypothesis.
That being said, we are honestly not entirely sure why bacterial growth was promoted rather than unaffected or inhibited by the cuttlefish ink. The first few plates that we ran were inaccurate due to an improper concentration of ethanol, so we think it is possible that those messed-up plates skewed the range of negative control data for statistical hits.
We also think it is possible that cuttlefish ink could work as a more subtle antibiotic, and the results could have been different had we experimented with a smaller amount of bacteria. It is also possible that individual compounds identified within cuttlefish ink contain nutrients that might mask the antimicrobial effects of other compounds in the extract.
I think that further testing would give us a much better idea of what exactly went wrong in this experiment, but for now, the lack of sufficient data is prohibiting me from providing a definite answer to your question.
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this comment was in response to Kestle Koeninger 🙂 sorry I did it incorrectly and now it won’t let me fix it!
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do you think this could work on other gram positive Bactria as well?
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Yes!
Systematic studies have shown that gram-positive organisms are the leading cause of invasive bacterial disease in patients with cancer. A broad range of gram-positive bacteria can cause serious infections in the cancer patient, including tumors.
The peptidoglycans within cuttlefish ink have been proven to show anti-tumor effects with nanoparticles of the ink giving promising results in inhibiting the growth of tumor cells in mice through affecting cell division; a property often observed in antimicrobial cell division.
This research proves that cuttlefish ink has already shown promising results in other gram-negative bacterial infections.
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