Impact of Antibiotics on Fruit Flies by Ishani Ranjan

Hey everyone! As we started to learn more about TRIP, fruit flies, and how to test things out, we have finally started to gear towards working on our Independent Projects. The last few weeks have been so fun and interesting, but it is truly exciting to start with our own individual projects. Essentially, we are all conducting experiments that either mean something to us, we have an interest in, and want to see what we can potentially learn. For these reasons, I chose to use different Antibiotics on fruit flies in order to see how they different affect female fertility and microbiome diversity.

My interest in antibiotics was sparked by an infection I had almost two years ago, which was when I learnt my body is resistant to a certain antibiotic. After this, I started a twitter page and blog called Fight Superbugs to raise awareness about antibiotic resistance. I also wrote a children's’ book--Superbugs vs Wonder Drugs: The Epic Battle--about the use of antibiotics. For all these reasons, I’ve been so excited to test antibiotics on fruit flies.

In my independent project, I chose to look at microbiome diversity due to the fact that humans with more diverse gut bacteria are less prone to antibiotic resistance. I believe if I analyze the gut bacteria I get to see, I might be able to conclude some interesting things. Additionally, I was reading an article which discussed how fertility could be negatively impacted from antibiotics, leading me to conduct the female fertility assay on my flies. While choosing which antibiotics I want to use, I chose three antibiotics that are commonly used for various infections. Therefore, I chose Pen/Strep, Bactrim, and Cipro. All three fall into a different category of antibiotics, which leads me to believe they can have different impacts on the human body.

I can’t wait to continue with my Independent Project, along with seeing what everyone else does with their project. TRIP is truly an amazing experience that I can’t wait to share with my friends and family!​