In 2016, St. Francis’ College was selected as one of only six schools in the country to take part in an initiative to help discover new 
antibiotics. The “Small World Initiative” (now called “Antibiotics Unearthed” in the UK), formulated at Yale University in 2012 is designed to give students the opportunity to be part of a global project to investigate and possibly discover new antibiotics. This is a highly topical issue as the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is considered to be potentially a greater threat than cancer by 2050. Helping to solve this problem is the focus of the £10-million Longitude prize.
Our A Level biologists are collaborating with Dr Simon Baines, Senior Lecturer of Microbiology at the University of Hertfordshire. Last term, Georgia Amor, Maisa Hasan, Mollie Knott, Grace Lam, Stephanie Lam, Sherry Ng, Clara Peirce-Finken, Shreya Suresh and Junfeng Yang collected soil samples and extracted bacteria plating out serial dilutions. They then tested whether these bacteria produced any substances with antibiotic properties, utilising an overlay method. Using our well-equipped Biology department’s PCR machine, the DNA was amplified, then run on our gel 
electrophoresis equipment to confirm the presence of the DNA of interest.
On 17th January the girls went to the University of Hertfordshire Microbiology laboratories to purify their DNA samples and quantify how much DNA they had obtained. These samples will then be sequenced and further analysed with the hope of discovering a new antimicrobial agent. This allowed our girls to have access to a modern, working research laboratory, giving them invaluable practical experience. In April, two of these girls will represent the group in Edinburgh, presenting a poster of their work at the Microbiology Society’s annual conference.
This is a hugely exciting and unique opportunity for the girls and the College. Our students are gaining an insight into laboratory research, using state-of-the-art laboratory equipment, whilst also trying to solve a global problem.