"The_Warrior" <almahdi at magma.ca> wrote in message
news:sYadnY5g8ohSFbvfRVn-pg at magma.ca...
> Hello every one, I'm a biology student in a University, and I truelly need
> your assistance in choosing a good topic for an undergraduate microbiology
> project. We tried isolating and quantitatively analyzing bacteria from
> common uncooked food products found in a grocery store such as chicken
> meat,
> fish, beef, and yogurt as a control.
>> Then, to generally identify any bacteria isolated from the food samples
> and
> to test the antibiotic resistance spectrum of the isolated bacteria. After
> these steps, we would follow few microbiology techniques that we learned
> in
> the labratory which would help us better analyze the metabolic properties
> of
> the bacteria. Unfortunately we were told by the instructor that this topic
> is not challenging at all because it had been done so many times.
>> Some of the techniques we thought of doing is using
> The following equipment:
>> Incubator (already present in lab)
>> Centrifuge (already present in lab)
>> Blender
>> Sterile Water (or MMA)
>> Nutritional Agar (NA) and Petri dishes (around 20-30 dishes)
>> Sterile test tubes (For serial dilutions) - approximately 20
>> Cell lysing solution (EDTA or any other sufficient to lyse bacteria)
>> Antibiotic filter discs (Generic ones such as Kanamycin, Streptomycin,
> Penicillin)
>> Test tube vortexer
>> Gram staining reagents (Crystal violet, Gram's iodine, safranin, 95%
> ethanol, slide)
>> Microscope
>>>> Can anyone help my partner and I in choosing a good topic to do for an
> experiment?
>>>> We either can do literature based project or experimental based project.
> We
> really prefer the experemental based projects because our course is an
> expermental microbiology course, so can you help us?
>>>> I'll wait for your reply
>> Thank you!!
>>>
HI
I think Lesley Roberts area sounds much more interesting than any of mine
but here are a few ideas for you to chew on
1) How about attempting to develop a novel rapid method for Gram stain.
i.e. an alternative a system that does
not require prolonged staining and fumbling about with slides and
microscopes etc. I read something about this years ago but never followed it
up Ithink it had to do with cell wall reaction to Pottasium hydroxide
2) Aerobiology; the microbiology of atmospheres; A huge area with little (
but good) research completed . Suggestion ;
Do organism isolated from the air need special resuscitation i.e. are they
damaged or perhaps in a different morphological form which
reduces effective recovery
3) Which organisms are responsible for smelly feet..you may laugh HA ha but
serious research needed even these days If you find out let me know after
all it was my idea lol
4) Get controversial : Why not see if an array of common novel food
addatives produce auxtrophic mutations in ecoli :)
Heck you could start with substances such as Chlorinated sugars and
Aspartamine and then run for your life (hehe)
5 ) Candida ablicans causative agent of thrush which by all accounts has
no 100 % treatment avialable. there you go lads a billion compounds to
screen
, full tank of gas .......your on a mission from god lol
Read a few copies of Nature or New scientist that will help with ideas,
Visit that big building with books in it ( Its a library) read Biological
abstracts or the Journal of Applied Bacteriology you will get a million
ideas.
Hope this helps good luck with your studies and do well
Best N10
