Drug resistant microbial infections play a role in millions of deaths worldwide each year. As time passes, more pathogenic strains of bacteria acquire antibiotic resistance genes. The development of novel antibiotic drugs cannot keep up. As a result, strategies to maintain or increase the efficacy of existing drugs are one potential way to fight against antibiotic resistant bacterial infections. Previous work has shown that supplementing bacteria with single metabolites can potentiate inhibition or killing by antibiotics that were previously ineffective. For example, several sugars and amino acids have been shown to increase the effectiveness of aminoglycoside antibiotics. To date, no comprehensive survey of combinations of metabolites and antibiotics has been conducted to identify these possible combination therapies. The studies required to establish candidates for this type of therapy only need common and inexpensive microbiological techniques. They are also simple enough for undergraduates to perform and are part of many existing microbiology laboratory curricula. Thus, the undergraduate microbiology laboratory may serve as a potential screening platform for these therapies. This setup allows students to conduct authentic, inquiry-driven research in their teaching lab. Here we describe a multi week laboratory module developed for an undergraduate microbiology lab course. This work outlines the biological background and experimental procedures for this module.
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