University bioscientists are conducting research with local school pupils in a project that could help develop the next generation of antibiotics.
Dr Mark Shepherd, Lecturer in Microbial Biochemistry, and Dr Gary Robinson, Senior Lecturer in Microbial Technology, of the University’s School of Biosciences, have collaborated with A-level and IB students at Kent College to isolate antibiotic-producing bacteria from the soil.
Working with Rachel Rutland, a biology teacher at Kent College, the project they designed was undertaken by students to source new these bacteria from local soil samples taken near Canterbury. The collaborative project was part of Antibiotics Unearthed supported by the Microbiology Society.
Their project not only revealed that a solution to antibiotic resistance may be close at hand with antibiotic-producing bacteria all around us. As well as potentially discovering something useful, the project is inspiring the next generation of future scientists.
These samples are currently being identified using genome sequencing and further research into their usefulness is underway to catalogue the classes of antibiotics they produce.
The project is ongoing and has the potential to identify new antibiotics that could be used to combat multidrug-resistant pathogens such as E. coli and MRSA, which are responsible for thousands of deaths every year in the UK.
The search for new antibiotics is crucial to combat the spread of multidrug-resistant bacterial infections, and isolation of further antimicrobials from soil bacteria could lead to new compounds, following a decades-long decline in pharmaceutical industry antibiotics discovery.