Bacterial Isolation

From the top picture going left to right, the plates are; Uninoculated agar, Mixed culture, two Selective/Differenetial agars  and a pure culture of Microbacterium sp. (or  Micrococcus luteus  as Dr. Leigh pointed out). Botom picture is zoomed in for more detail.

I call my art project “Bacterial Isolation”. I wanted to make different bacterial morphologies in many different colors to use in my project. Most of the colonies are raised and bumpy, while some are smooth and experience some gliding. Each individual peice is made out of pressed glass (either clear, light or dark blue, green or purple) with different bacterial colonies on top of each, embedded in a layer of clear epoxy resin. The petri dishes are covers that were provided by Dr. Leigh.

I feel this represents my time spent in the lab trying to isolate my bacteria, which I restreaked over 12 times to ensure it was pure. We have learned about and utilized many different types of agar and I wanted to incoporate the idea of a selective and differential agar into my work as well. I hope you enjoyed my bacteria isolation series!