Alli's class 112013
- 1. What is a microbiologist? 10 μm Dr. Gregory Palmer, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin
- 2. What does micro mean? Small
- 3. What does bio mean? Life!
- 4. BACTERIA • Single celled • Microscopic organisms • Micrometers (μm) • smaller than a strand hair
- 5. Where do bacteria live? Almost everywhere there’s water
- 6. You are made up of: human cells ~1014 cells bacterial cells ~1015 cells 10 times more bacteria?!
- 7. A white blood cell “chases” Staphylococcus aureus D. Rogers, Vanderbilt University; dnatube.com
- 8. What do bacteria do?
- 9. Most bacteria (~99.99999%) are HARMLESS! Lactobacillus acidophilus Helps digest food, makes vitamins ~0.00001% bacteria can cause disease Staphylococcus Streptococcus Infects human tissue—can make you very sick Strep throat
- 10. How do we stop bad bacteria?? Important: bacteria and viruses are very different! Antibiotics don’t work on viruses like the flu or the common cold!
- 11. Where do antibiotics come from? • Humans have basically never come up with an antibiotic on our own… we always steal them from nature! • Most of our current antibiotics come from bacteria and fungi that live in the soil • We need to find new antibiotics, because bacteria are becoming resistant to the ones we have now!
- 12. My lab looks for bacteria that MAKE antibiotics Streptomyces bacteria are known to make antibiotics
- 13. Collecting soil samples and isolating bacteria We spread soil samples on plates like these that have the right kind of food for the bacteria we want. When the bacteria grow up, they look like this!
- 14. Sometimes we just mess around… Bacterial Abe Lincoln! Bacterial longhorn! SCIENCE IS FUN!!!!
- 15. What did we learn? • Microbiology is the study of microbes – Microscopic, single-celled living organisms • There are more bacteria cells in your body than human cells! That’s okay because most bacteria are harmless and some are helpful. • Almost all the antibiotics we have came from bacteria and fungi that live in the soil! • It’s important to look for new antibiotics, to fight off resistant strains of bacteria that keep popping up in hospitals and the community
- 16. Thanks! “I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me ROAR”