• Question: do antibiotics threaten your research and if so, how?

    Asked by k31ra79 to Nicola, Kat on 18 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Nicola Fletcher

      Nicola Fletcher answered on 18 Mar 2013:

      No, they don’t really threaten my research. As I work on viruses, antibiotics are not effective against them anyway, because they only work against bacteria. I grow lots of human cells in the lab, and we do put antibiotics on them just to keep any nasty bugs out. But my day-to-day research is not affected by antibiotics.

    • Photo: Kathryn McMahon

      Kathryn McMahon answered on 18 Mar 2013:

      Actually, antibiotics help my research as I do a lot of cloning with bacteria. This is where you grow a piece of DNA ( (a plasmid) in bacteria. You can then use the piece of dna (plasmid) to turn on genes in cells in a dish or even to genetically alter things like plants, mice or fish. To grow the plasmid in bacteria, we usually use antibiotics – the plasmid will carry a gene for resistance to the antibiotic. This means that when we grow the bacteria in the presence of the antibiotic, only those bacteria that have the plasmid be able to survive and grow. Once the bacteria have grown, we burst them open using chemicals, remove the plasmids and clean them up.

Comments