Bird Droppings as a Miracle Medicine: A middle school student discovers a cancer-fighting compound in goose poop.
Can bird droppings hold the cure for cancer? Yes, goose poop contains a never-before-seen cancer-fighting compound.
A group of young students transformed into bonafide biomedical scientists even before starting high school. Partnering with a nearby university, these middle schoolers collected and analyzed environmental samples in search of new antibiotic candidates.
New Cancer-Fighting Compound in Goose Poop
One unique sample, goose poop collected at a local park, had a bacterium that showed antibiotic activity and contained a novel compound that slowed the growth of human melanoma and ovarian cancer cells in lab tests.
Inequities in educational resources, especially those in science, engineering, technology and math (STEM), where experiments are expensive, have kept some students underrepresented in these fields. By engaging a group of these students early in real, high-quality research, a team from the University of Illinois at Chicago led by Brian Murphy is providing young learners a chance to see themselves as scientists and explore careers in science with hands-on experience. The team partnered with a Boys and Girls Club in Chicago to bring interested middle schoolers into a 14-week applied science program (1✔ ✔Trusted Source
Discovery of New Cyclic Lipodepsipeptide Orfamide N via Partnership with Middle School Students from the Boys and Girls Club
Goose Droppings: An Unexpected Source of Antibiotic Power
Murphy’s lab is focused on discovering antibiotics from natural sources, and the cohort of young scientists participated by supplying environmental samples from their local communities. And the students’ contributions to the research group didn’t end there. They stayed actively involved throughout the scientific discovery process by programming a specialized robot to scoop up bacterial colonies from growth plates and test them for antibiotic activity.
One of the 14 samples collected — goose poop from the Garfield Park Lagoon — contained a strain of bacteria called Pseudomonas idahoensis. The students interpreted the bacterium’s bioassay data and concluded it had antibiotic activity and produced a never-before-seen compound. Then, the university researchers determined the compound’s molecular structure using nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry, named it orfamide N after the family of molecules it belongs to, and investigated its biological activity. Although orfamide N was not responsible for the antibiotic activity that the team initially observed from P. idahoensis, the compound inhibited the growth of human melanoma and ovarian cancer cells in culture tests. Further studies could reveal other advantageous properties of this newly characterized molecule.
The researchers say that this work proves that it’s possible to combine educational outreach with natural product discovery research, and it emphasizes the importance of a strong relationship between universities and their local communities.
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References:
- Discovery of New Cyclic Lipodepsipeptide Orfamide N via Partnership with Middle School Students from the Boys and Girls Club – (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.4c07459)
Source-Newswise
