2016 Participants
Thomas Blackburn
In the past Actinobacteria have been used to produce many antibiotic compounds, but in the modern environment with the threat of MRSA and the rise of bacterial resistance to traditional antibiotics, these can prove ineffective. Using Actinobacteria sourced from extreme environments that are taxonomically different to more prevalent species in order to produce novel antibiotic compounds may be the solution to this problem.
To test this hypothesis techniques developed at Newcastle University will be used to isolate and extract Actinobacteria from soil samples taken from the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. These isolates can be tested to see how effective their products are as antibiotics, and curated if they prove useful.
Funding source: Newcastle University
Supervisor: Prof Michael Goodfellow