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[Microbiology] Re: methods in confirming antibacterial property of certain spices

Bob bbx107 at excite.XXXX.com
Wed Jan 4 23:30:23 EST 2006


On 4 Jan 2006 05:39:07 -0800, "jhace" <jhace_sting25 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>i am an undergraduate in bs food technology and i have chosen this
>topic:
>antibacterial properties of certain spices and their essential oils
>for my special problem.
>
>Please suggest references or certain studies that have methods in it to
>at least qualitatively show antibacteriostatic/antibacteriocidic
>properties of certain spices. You can also cite your own procedure. :)
>thanks for your time.

Go talk within reference librarian in your biology library to learn
how to use the online search tools available to you. There are some
public ones (e.g., Medline, Scirus), but there are also commercial
ones that your univ may subscribe to. Searching multiple databases is
usefully a good idea -- though not necessarily all at the start. 

You will want to define more clearly what you have in mind. You might
search on the general term spices, but you say you have specific
spices in mind. It can also help to have certain chemical components
in mind.

You will also need to think about how much you are interested in "lab
studies" with purified components tested against pure bacterial
cultures, vs "real world" studies of food preservation. With luck,
some mixture of the types of studies will give you the best
understanding.

I assume you know the basics of testing for antibiotics?

bob


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