Microbiology Controls

This week marked an expansion of focus upon plating our hypothetical complex onto various TSA media containing various bacteria. Much of what we analyzed on this side of the project looked like the following:

We saw that the hypothetical complexes did not exhibit larger zones of inhibition across Al3+, Cu2+, Fe3+ and Fe2+ than curcumin alone. Dr. K hypothesized that the formation equilibrium had to be pushed to the right and we increased the mol:mol ratio of cation to curcumin for the next plates. This showed mild evidence supporting Dr. K's hypothesis.

We had more questions about achieving a high concentration of complex in solution and attempted to accomplish that goal by considering the time since mixing our curcumin and the cation. Dr. K had Isaac, who normally runs our HPLC, mix the solution in his syringe which produced results consistent with greater amounts of complex. We decided to try to apply this to the microbiology side of things.

Hypothetically, if we accept that the rate of decomposition of the complex is greater than its rate of formation shortly after mixing, then its concentration should be highest right when mixed. We will check back in next week to see whether or not the plates we streaked today support this hypothesis.

7/19/2018
-Alexander Czechowicz