Publication Date
4-20-2020
Document Type
Poster
Department
CSP Science
Faculty Mentor
Dr.Brosnahan, Dr.Mach
Abstract
Staphylococcus aureus is a dual role bacterium and is able to live commensally in some patients, but can cause disease in others. Methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA) causes life threatening disease in patients and can be very hard to treat since it is resistant to many antibiotics. In order for S. aureus to wreak havoc on the body, it must be able to have specific genes expressed to secrete toxins. These toxins are what causes the patients to get a wide variety of symptoms like boils, scalded skin, toxic shock syndrome, pneumonia or sepsis. This study tested eleven different isolates from people of Concordia St.Pauls campus and went through the testing process of seeing which were positive isolates for S.aureus.The testing process included growing the bacteria on Mannitol Salt Agar (MSA) ,Deoxyribonuclease (DNase), Coagulase, Colistin Nalidixic Acid blood agar (CNA), Catalase and Gram Stain. Out of the eleven isolates, there were two that tested positive for S.aureus, which is a 18% carriage rate.