John Koperna

It’s A Small World: Fighting Antibiotic Resistance

Abstract

The Small World Initiative was started in 2012 with the intent to recruit and use students at

various universities across the world to help fight against the rising epidemic of antibiotic

resistance. These students look for new antibiotic producing-bacteria found in soil. Antibiotic

resistance is when an antibiotic no longer has an effect on a certain strain of bacteria. A

bacterium becomes resistant by either resisting the effect of the antibiotic being used, or by

completely neutralizing the antibiotics effects. This year I got the privilege of taking part in the

Small World Initiative during my microbiology lab at Penn State Schuylkill. We harvested soil

samples from our own campus back yard and did a series of dilutions, in order to grow bacteria

on nutrient agar plates. We then narrowed down our bacteria by plating them against E. coli and S. epidermis looking for antibiotic properties. We continued our research by running a series of

biochemical tests, such as the MR/VP, catalase, oxidase, phenol red glucose, citrate, and SIM on

our antibiotic producing bacteria to try and identify our bacteria. We also did differential media

tests of starch agar, blood agar, eosin methylene blue, mannitol salt agar, macConkey agar, and

skim milk agar to get a good overview of other characteristics of our bacteria.

Poster

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Presentation

John’s Presentation of His Poster on Zoom

Mini Bio

I’m John Koperna. I am 34 years old and married with 4 children. I’m originally from Herndon Pennsylvania and now reside in Pottsville Pennsylvania. I attended Line Mountain High School and right after graduation went to Shippensburg University for one year. After that one year of school, I began working at Walmart distribution center 7030 and never went back to school. I finally decided last year it was time to return to school and pursue my dreams of being a nurse. I am currently in my last semester at Penn State Schuylkill before I move on to Joseph F. McCloskey School of Nursing. After I obtain my RN, I plan on returning to Penn State Schuylkill for my BSN. After my BSN, my goal is to become a Nurse Anesthetist.