Preventing the War on Superbugs: The Powers of Vitamin D3

As antibiotic resistant bacteria persist as a stagnant issue, researchers and scientists continuously attempt to find new solutions to the problem. The aim of this proposal is to focus on finding preventative measures that will have a longer lasting effect on counteracting infection and antibiotic resistance. Specifically, this proposal homed in on MRSA as the target pathogen and vitamin D as the proposed preventative solution. We chose MRSA because it is a notoriously difficult superbug to treat resulting in around 20,000 deaths each year in the U.S. alone (Kourtis, 2019), and we chose vitamin D because of the significant supporting research that suggests vitamin D increases the body’s antimicrobial immune response. Our experiment uses different combinations of MRSA, tissue culture, and vitamin D in vitro to test whether or not vitamin D has a positive effect. Several controls are presented as well to provide comparison. We expect that tissue culture treated with vitamin D will have a significantly stronger immune response to a MRSA infection. Hopefully, the findings of this study will help inform future research. Furthermore, if our hypothesis is supported, it could be important information for the general public, so that they are aware of the importance of maintaining personal vitamin D levels.