Debby Sunday / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Sherri McFarland
Bacterial infections have a huge impact on human health across the world. Conventional antimicrobials are considered as the first line of defense to treat these infections through blocking steps in a metabolic pathway crucial to the survival of bacteria. Unfortunately, the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has created an urgent need to develop alternate strategies. One alternative is photodynamic inactivation (PDI) of bacteria. This strategy utilizes a photosensitizer that can be active by specific wavelengths of light to kill unwanted and highly resistant bacterial cells through cytotoxic singlet oxygen and other reactive molecular species (RMS). The immediate burst of relatively nonspecific RMS combats the resistance that bacteria acquire toward many antimicrobial drugs. This presentation highlights the light-triggered antimicrobial activity of various natural product extracts obtained from botanicals. The natural product extract activity in terms of bacterial growth inhibition across different strains (including AMR species) will be highlighted in the qualitative agar diffusion assay and followed up with more quantitative minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) studies.
Leave a Reply