Andrew Day

• BSc (Hons) Biomedical Sciences with Medical Microbiology
• Screening of Actinomycetes for novel antibiotics

Misuse of antibiotics has led to development of antibiotic resistant bacteria.  Many currently used antibiotics are derived from bacteria, however, there has been a dearth of novel classes of antibiotics since the 1980s.  The Demuris collection contains over 6000 Actinomycetes, from which over 50% of current bacteria-derived antibiotics originate.  My work involved selecting over 70 bacteria that had shown broad spectrum activity.  At the end of the project 4 potential antibiotics had been extracted for purification.  Future work would involve purification of the potential antibiotics, more testing of their antibacterial activity and an assessment of their potential toxicity to humans.

Funding source: Newcastle University