Julia enjoys swimming, music, and performing in choir and school plays. She is also very active in her church youth group. Julia would like to become an obstetrician someday. "Family is very important to me, and I want to assist others in their dream of having children become a reality," she explains. Julia considers both of her grandfathers, a pediatrician and a preacher, as mentors who have "touched many lives."
Julia wanted to know if the herbal remedy Echinacea or the antibiotics oxacillin, vancomycin, or erythromycin was more effective for killing the bacteria that causes pneumonia.
Julia collected 21 throat swabs and transferred them to agar plates for overnight incubation. She then stained the plates to identify colonies of Streptococcus pneumoniae. After finding no bacteria, Julia ordered a sample from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She then prepared 33 test tubes with various amounts of Echinacea, added Streptococcus colonies, and incubated the results overnight. She found that higher levels of Echinacea killed the most bacteria. She then performed head-to-head tests of Echinacea and various antibiotics, but her results were inconclusive.
