University Honors

Magnesium Oxide nanoparticles are known to have bactericidal properties against many strains of bacteria that are commonly present in nosocomial infections such as Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus epidermidis (Staph epi). While other heavy metal compounds like silver oxide have shown bactericidal properties towards P. Aeruginosa, these compounds are unable to metabolize within the human body. However, magnesium is a light metal that can fully metabolize in the human body, making it an ideal treatment option rather than heavy metal alternatives. While we have various medications for treating micro organisms, biofilms pose a more challenging task. Biofilms form whenever bacteria adheres to a surface using extracellular polymeric substances. These substances act like glue and hold the bacteria on the surface and cause other bacteria to attach as well. This can be for several reasons mainly to avoid threats that would kill individual cells but not a biofilm. This can make it very challenging to treat biofilms because if the treatment is not potent enough the bacteria may regard it as a threat and surround the treatment in a layer of cells causing the treatment to lose efficacy. We hypothesize that by exposing Pseudomonas to MgO nanoparticles the biofilm will be disrupted. After conducting the experiment, we saw that wells exposed to MgO nanoparticles appeared to have biofilm reduction.