Response of Antibiotics and Bacteria in a Microgravity EnvironmentSSEP Mission 4 to the International Space Station

Response of Antibiotics and Bacteria in a

Microgravity EnvironmentCo-Principal investigators: Paxton Ellul, Ashley Miller, and Haley Dole

12 gradeTeacher Facilitator: Patrick Gillespie

Traverse City West Senior High SchoolFlight Experiment, Mission 3 to ISS

Response of Antibiotics and Bacteria in Microgravity

Essential Question: How does bacteria growth and antibiotics respond together in a microgravity environment?

Hypothesis: We believe that the bacteria may grow to a higher concentration in microgravity but the antibiotic dosage will still manage to fully treat the bacteria grown.

Experiment Design Section C- This section contained our

Section A-Inside this chamber we inclosed Section B- Within the middle section of the FME tube we placed the Staphylococcus Epidermidis in a bacteria growth serum that will be mixed with the bacteria during the powdered form that would be experimental process.ready to react with the growth serum.

antibiotic, Cephalexin, that when mixed in with our staphylococcus epidermidis should kill the bacteria cultures.

Experiment Design● Five days prior to coming back from the ISS a clamp was removed from

our test tube that allowed the bacteria and the growth serum to mix. The bacteria then grew for three days aboard the ISS.

● Two Days prior to returning to earth the last clap was removed exposing the antibiotic to the the growing bacteria.

While the astronauts performed these tasks we did the same for control experiment.

Spectrophotometry Test ResultsWavelengths in Nanometers

Control Experiment Transmittance

Microgravity Experiment Transmittance

590 nm 0.1 0.4

600 nm 0.2 0.6

610 nm 0.2 0.6

620 nm 0.2 0.6

630 nm 0.2 0.6

640 nm 0.2 0.6

650 nm 0.2 0.6

660 nm 0.2 0.4

Control Experiment Microgravity Test Experiment

Conclusion After being sent to Munson’s Laboratory, it was concluded that there was no viable Staphylococcus Epidermidis in either the microgravity or control experiment sample. The antibiotic, Cephalexin, with a heavy dosage worked just as effectively in microgravity. Unfortunately the laboratory lacked the tools to do a quantitative measurement on the dead bacteria and they also reported some contamination in our samples.

Why was the control experiment able to absorb more light than the other in our Spectrometer test?

We theorize that because there was the same amount of Cephalexin in each of the tests and they were mixed to the same degree, the difference may have come from a variation in the amount of dead bacteria in the solutions. The control experiment absorbed more light in the spectrometer than the microgravity experiment which may mean that it had a greater amount of dead bacteria in its solution. In the microgravity experiment the bacteria had more spatial room meaning that immediately more surface area would have been exposed to the antibiotic; allowing it to kill the bacteria faster than the control experiment which had less bacteria exposed. The control experiment therefore could have kept growing bacteria as the antibiotic was fighting it for a longer period of time than the microgravity experiment therefore producing more dead cultures and transmitting less light in the spectrometer.

Collaborators and Community Partners

Collaborators Traverse City Area Public SchoolsTraverse City West Senior High SchoolMunson Healthcare

Special thanks to SSEP for giving us this experience!

Community PartnersCenter for the Advancement of Science in Space

National Center for Earth and Space Science Education

Dow Chemical Company

DTE Energy Foundation

Salamander Technologies

B and E Enterprize