Amanda is active in Girl Scouts, tennis, and swimming. She also sings in the choir and plays the piano. As a future medical researcher, Amanda wants to "discover cures for diseases like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's to save countless lives." Her science hero is Jane Goodall. "She accomplished her goals through persistence and hard work," Amanda says.
Amanda's mother believes that garlic has helped Amanda's grandmother live a long, healthy life. This encouraged Amanda to learn more about garlic's properties, especially its antibiotic properties. Amanda wondered if garlic could help fight the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant microbes.
Raw and cooked garlic was added to tubes filled with fluids representing a digestive mixture: saliva (mouth), hydrochloric acid (stomach), pepsin (stomach), and sodium hydroxide (small intestine). Extracts from the tubes were added to agar plates containing nonresistant E. coli, ampicillin-resistant E. coli, or kanamycin-resistant E. coli. Raw garlic was more effective against the bacterium than cooked garlic, but the presence of each inhibited the spread of all three strains of E. coli.
