Antibiotic Resistance and Skin Microflora
Focus:
This module aims to teach students some basic microbiology techniques, and examine the problem of antibiotic resistant bacteria, particularly MRSA.
Overview:
The module is 4 weeks long. During the first week, students isolate skin cells (and bacteria) from their skin and culture on mannitol-salt agar to isolate Staphylococcus sp. This week has quite a lot of down time, so I would introduce the "Roller Derby of Bacteria" article from the New Yorker. Week 2 involves identifying Staphylococcus epidermidis, making bacterial lawns and challenging the bacteria with antibiotic disks. During the weeks down time I would have the students look at MRSA transmission on a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Next lab is measuring zones of inhibition and Gram staining. Homework will be to look back at the Plos one paper and look at the methods used to identify the bacteria genome sequencing
Applicable for Courses:
MicrobiologyEducational Level:
Introductory/IntermediateRoadmap Objectives:
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- Article: "Roller Derby of Bacteria" article from the New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/04/bacteria-health-microbime-disease-research.html
- Content area/major concepts:
- Methods or technology used to obtain data:
- How the CREATE strategy was used: Create a concept map of this article.
- Biggest teaching challenge:
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- Article: MRSA transmission on a Neonatal Intensive care Unit: Epidemiological and Genome_based Phylogenetic Analyses. Nubel et al PLOS One Jan 2013 volume 8 e54898
- Content area/major concepts: This paper is about MRSA transmission.
- Methods or technology used to obtain data:
- How the CREATE strategy was used: I would have students annotate figure 2 (On a first glance this figure is complex, but it is very well explained in the text).
- Biggest teaching challenge: