Amelia Schmidt
The Isolation and Characterization of Polyvalent Enterococcus Phage As Effective Antibiotic Alternatives
Mentor: Dr. Molly Welsh
| How can we best combat microbial resistance to antibiotics? The overuse and misuse of antibiotics has led to a crisis of multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacterial infections. Common bacterial infections can result in serious disease and in severe cases, even death. The necessity of antibiotic alternatives is clear. Enter: the bacteriophage, a virus and obligate parasite which specifically infects and destroys bacteria. Phages have the potential to function as an alternative to current, ineffective, antibiotic drugs. Here I present original research on six novel candidate phages, which I isolated and analyzed for clinical viability and their ability to kill MDR bacteria. |
