Berkley Pit, Butte, Mont./ © Ann Kramlich
Sept. 17, 2003
Medicinal Value of a Fungus
Do Microbes Growing in Unique Ecological Niches Contain Compounds with Redeemable Medicinal Value?
Kels Gordon Phelps, 14, Butte, Mont.
TLC "Experimental Aircraft Association Aviation Camp" Award, Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge, 2002
Project background: In a previous science project, Kels had examined the remedial values of a fungus, Pitna 4, that inhabited Berkley Pit, an abandoned open-pit copper mine rapidly filling with acidic water. Kels decided to continue that experiment and study the medicinal value of this unique fungus in more detail. He hypothesized that, because the environment of Berkley Pit was so extreme, Pitna 4 would kill certain other fungi, bacteria, and brine shrimp.
Tactics and results: Kels ran a sample of Pitna 4 through an exclusion column that separated it out into six fractions. He ran biological activity tests on each fraction and put one disk from each fraction in a plate with another bacterial organism. He plated a total of five types of bacteria with the different Pitna 4 fractions. The results showed fraction A and B lethal to one type of bacteria while the others were unaffected. He also ran brine shrimp lethality tests on each of the fractions, and the results showed fractions A and B to be most lethal. Next, he ran nuclear magnetic resonance spectrograms on each fraction to determine how many active compounds were in each fraction. The results of this test showed that fraction A and B were the most active.
Kels concluded that since fraction A and B proved lethal to bacteria and brine shrimp, these fractions could be isolated and tested as drugs to treat a variety of illnesses.
NEWS: 2003 Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge (DCYSC) Finalists Named.
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