Advanced Micro Student Presentations

Posted on December 9, 2011 by A. T. Wyatt

Students from the BIMS 4491 Advanced Microbiology course presented their posters at a come and go reception this morning.  These students conducted research this fall on how heat affects survival of bacterial spores produced in rich and poor growth media using a several wild-type and genetically-modified/engineered bacteria.  It was an amazing amount of good work, and the students designed and completed the study from start to finish with excellent results.

Matt Durham, Jonathan Urbanczyk, and Kee’Twana Williams studied Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a spore-forming bacterium of economic importance because of the insecticidal crystal it produces.  Their work compared heat resistance of natural and engineered strains of Bt and its non-crystal producing relative, soil microbe Bacillus cereus (Bc).  Though they worked together in the lab, each looked at a different aspect of the project.  Durham compared the spores of several natural varieties of Bt and Bc for heat resistance when grown in a rich medium (brain-heart infusion agar, BHI) vs. in a poor medium (soil extract agar, SEA). He found that in every case spores produced in the rich medium were far less heat resistant than those produced in SEA.  Rich media seem to generate weaker spores.  Urbanczyk compared wild-type, crystal-producing Bt with plasmid-cured, acrystalliferous strains.  His work found that the crystal’s absence did not have a bearing on heat resistance, though the means of plasmid curing did influence resistance.  Again, engineered strains were not as heat resistant when grown on BHI as on SEA. Williams looked at Bc strains which had been engineered to produce Bt crystals.  It was found that introducing crystal protein did not appear to change the heat resistance of spores from that observed for wild-type strains.  Again, BHI-produced spores were less heat resistant than those from SEA.

On tap next for the three will be research conferences and the pooling of their data and observations to produce a paper that will be submitted for publication this spring.

Students in the class were (see photo, from left to right) Matthew Durham, Jonathan Urbanczyk, KeeKee Williams, and Dr. Gary Wilson.

Great job!

 

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Presentations from Urbanczyk and Khan

Posted on December 2, 2011 by A. T. Wyatt

We’ve had two great presentations this week!  Jonathan Urbancyzk, biomedical science major and participant in the Welch summer research program, addressed a full house on his research into a novel antibiotic targeting gram-negative bacteria.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) and many other Gram-negative opportunistic pathogens plague hospitals by causing nosocomial infections. Due to the continual bacterial resistance towards commercially available antibiotics, there is a great need for a new generation of antibiotics. One promising target is the zinc-dependent metalloamidase, UDP-3-O-(R-3-hydroxymyristoyl)-N-acetylglucosamine deacetylase (LpxC), which is the first committed step of Lipid A biosynthesis in Gram-negative bacteria. LpxC is an essential enzyme that is encoded by a single copy gene that is conserved in almost all Gram-negative bacteria.  We hypothesize that small molecules that are able to bind to zinc have the potential to be inhibitors of LpxC.  The synthesis of small molecules containing phenanthroline and hydroxamate moieties easily coordinate with metal ions including zinc. An antibiotic susceptibility assay was conducted with 3-(1H-imidazo[4,5-f][1,10]phenanthrolin-2-yl)phenol (HIPP), testing inhibition against P. aeruginosa. In addition, modeling experiments that have shown an enhanced binding affinity of these compounds with the active site of P. aeruginosa LpxC.

Our second presentation this week comes from the Physics department.  Sheharyar Khan, Physics major, presented his Design of an air supported structure.

The objective of this project was to design an air supported structure (practice bubble) for use of all McMurry athletics on McMurry property. The design of the practice bubble is similar to that of professional teams and other universities nationwide so that athletics may practice with protection from inclement weather. I have also performed a load analysis on the structure to further understand the physics and engineering behind the construction of a practice bubble. Furthermore, a cost analysis was also performed to determine the cost of building and maintaining a bubble here at McMurry. The design and load analysis was performed using the computer program commonly used by professional engineers, SolidWorks.

We congratulate these two students, and the faculty members who worked with them, on a job well done!

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