By: David Toelkes
BIO 225
June 12, 2012
Lab Partners
Alexis Blackmon
Cheryl Cardiff
Megan Dereani
Logan Freeman
Abstract
Development of bacterial resistance to the antimicrobial drugs identified the need to determine a given bacterium’s susceptibility or resistance to a given drug which prompted W. M. M. Kirby and A. W. Bauer to develop a single disk method for susceptibility testing. This experiment used the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion test to measure the degree to which Penicillin, Streptomycin, Ampicillin, and Chloramphenicol inhibited the growth of the bacterium, Proteus vulgaris. The measured zone of resistance for each antibiotic was compared against antibiotic performance standards maintained by the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute to determine whether Proteus vulgaris was susceptible, intermediate, or resistant to the antibiotics used in the experiment. Proteus vulgaris demonstrated susceptibility to Ampicillin, Streptomycin, and Chloramphenicol but resistance to Penicillin. The average zone of inhibition for Ampicillin measured in this experiment was just 2 mm above the threshold diameter for Proteus vulgaris to be classified as susceptible. Testing on a much broader scope and over an extended period of time would have to be undertaken to determine if Proteus vulgaris is strengthening in resistance to the antibiotics which are currently effective in treating infections caused by Proteus vulgaris.
Introduction
In 1928, bacteriologist Alexander Fleming made a chance discovery from an already discarded experiment that had become contaminated. The mold that had contaminated his experiment turned out to contain a powerful antibiotic, which Fleming called penicillin, and the age of modern antibiotics was launched. (Cowan, 2012) Even though Alexander Fleming discovered the antibiotic properties of penicillin in 1928, it was not until August 1941 that the first experiments in