The answer to an impending health threat could be solved right here at Castleton University.
Natural Sciences Department faculty member Preston Garcia was selected in April to teach a Small World Initiative (SWI) course at Castleton during the 2016-17 academic year. SWI uses a crowdsourcing approach to tackle antibiotic resistance by joining forces with students and professors in 150 participating schools across 35 states, Puerto Rico, and 12 other countries.
“We’re running out of drugs that can treat bacterial infections,” said Garcia, “As a society, we haven’t come up with a new antibiotic since the late 70’s or 80’s. So not only have we not developed any new antibiotics, we have a huge issue with antibiotic resistance and infections.”
Garcia attended a training this past June at the University of Connecticut with 25 other SWI Partner Instructors that will be taking the program back to their schools and universities. He plans to offer the pilot course during the spring semester, and again every fall semester following.
The SWI program also focuses on the increase of STEM retention in students, a curriculum based around applied Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
“This is an opportunity to allow Castleton students to conduct hands-on research and potentially discover a novel antibiotic that could one day be used for combating human diseases,” explained Garcia.
The group will begin by collecting unknown organisms out of the ground, growing them and testing which ones produce antibiotics. From there they will work to identify how well each antibiotic works against other bacteria and identify compounds.
Castleton University will be the first school in Vermont to offer the Small World Initiative course and try their hand at the global antibiotic crowdsourcing discovery effort.
“We could find the next great antibiotic right here on campus,” said Garcia.